
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Rljps 

UNITED STATES OF AMERlfc, 



FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION 



ETC. 



LONDON : PRINTED BY 
SPCTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE 
AND PARLIAMENT STREET 



FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION IN THE 
MIND AND HEART OF MAN 




RIGHT HON. SIR JOHN BARNARD BYLES 

LATE ONE OF THE JUDGES OF HER MAJESTY'S COURT OF 
COJIilOX PLEAS AT WESTJUXSTER 




LONDON 

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMAKLE STREET 

1875 



All rights reserved 



PREFACE. 



This book is the result of observation and reflection for 
many years on problems which have a supreme interest 
for every mind, in youth or in age. It does not profess 
to contain much that is new, for novelty on a subject 
which has exercised the human intellect for several thou- 
sand years must be suspicious. 

Almost every theory that can be imagined has been 
long ago propounded, and nearly all that can be said on 
either side of every theory has been already said, and 
many times repeated. But Truth is nevertheless one, it 
is error that is legion. Amidst the confusion of tongues 
there can be little doubt, that the Truth (though perhaps 
not on all parts of the subject by the same Church, sect, 
or person) has already been spoken, and that the voice of 
Truth may be heard by those who listen with attention, 
discrimination, and impartiality. 

But the true object, and ultimate test of speculation 
is practice. As theories in practical mechanics must be 
tested by experience, so theories in morals and religion 



PREFACE. 



•which, instead of conducting to wisdom and virtue, are 
by experience found to lead to selfishness, sensuality, 
vice, and so to their ultimate, but certain consequence, 
public disorder, are contrary to our higher nature, and 
are sure to be as extravagant and erroneous in specu- 
lation, as they are wrong and mischievous in practice. 
The older the world grows, the more of these practical 
tests there are ; and to these tests w r e must be pardoned if 
we sometimes appeal for the purpose of thereby trying 
the conclusions of reason. 

Theological controversy, in the ordinary sense of the 
word, has in these pages been as much as possible avoided. 
A layman is neither qualified, nor disposed to thread the 
interminable maze. But, on the other hand, he is more 
at liberty than a clergyman of any Church or Sect can be, 
or ought to be, to say all, and exactly what he thinks. 
Some readers may complain, that positive conclusions have 
not been pushed further. But the object has been to 
labour on common ground, especially for the benefit of 
the young and uninstructed (for whom alone the author 
presumes to write), by showing in a popular manner, on how 
broad, solid, and immovable a foundation religious Faith, 
Hope, and Worship repose ; to cheer and fortify sincere and 
anxious hearts, whatever form of the Christian religion 
they may have embraced. It is plain, that this end must 
have been entirely frustrated, had the narrow tenets or 
interests of any particular Church, sect, or party, been 
directly or indirectly advocated or attacked. 

For more than a century past, in France and Germany, 



PREFACE. 



vii 



free inquiry on religious subjects has, for the most part, 
been destructive. An enterprise when directed against 
some portions of popular faith, often very easy, some- 
times necessary, but always dangerous — the wheat is 
torn up with the tares. The object of this book is to be 
constructive, without forfeiting allegiance to truth. 

The author is unaffectedly and painfully conscious of 
his inability to deal satisfactorily with this transcendent 
subject ; but possibly a long forensic and judicial life? 
spent in daily observation of human affairs, human pas- 
sions and crimes (and let him add, of human affections 
and human virtues) may have presented opportunities of 
studying human life, and human necessities, not given to 
everyone. 

Of course the substance of much that is here said, has 
been said before, and said by so many, that it is unneces- 
sary to particularize ; but there are two authors to whom 
the writer is especially indebted — our own countryman 
Paley, and the late venerable M. Troplong, President of 
the Supreme Court of Appeal in France. To both these 
distinguished men, it has been thought due to quote their 
own expressions, though at some length, rather than to 
borrow from them the substance of their remarks, with a 
mere general acknowledgement. 

It remains only to solicit the reader's indulgence for 
the fragmentary condition of this little work, written at 
different times, and at very considerable intervals. It 
has no pretensions to the dignity of a treatise. One con- 



viii 



PREFACE. 



sequence may, perhaps, be occasional and unintentional 
repetition ; for which, should it be remarked, the reader's 
forbearance is respectfully besought. 

J. B. B. 

Harefield : October 1875. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Natural Sources of Religious Knowledge . 1 

II. Philosophical Indifference 5 

III. The First Cause . 7 

IV. The Divine Benevolence 33 

V. Death and a Future Life 44 

VI. Providence . 53 

VII. Divine Worship 71 

VIII. The Moral Law 83 

IX. Evil 99 

X. Divine Justice 106 

XL Forms of Worship. . . . ' . . . Ill 

XII. Distinction between a Difficulty and a Dis- 

proof , . 114 

XIII. State of the Civilized World when Chris- 

tianity appeared . . . . . . 117 



x CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XIV. Instinct . . . . . . ... 131 

XV. Inefficacy oe mere Nattteal Religion . . 134 

XVI. Philosophical Scepticism 142 

XVII. Mahometanism 145 

XVIII. SOCRATES AND St. PAUL 147 



XIX. Resignation, Cheerfulness, and Hope; or De- 
spondency, Despair, and Pear . . . .151 

XX. Philosophy and Religion 150 



FOUNDATIONS OF EELIGION 
THE MIND AND HEART OF MAN. 



CHAPTER I. 

NATUEAL SOUKCES OF KELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE. 

The old and prevalent anatomy of the human mind for 
many centuries distributed it into two parts only — the 
understanding and the will. 

But this rude and imperfect analysis has of late been 
discarded as altogether insufficient, and a more compre- 
hensive tripartite division has been generally adopted, by 
introducing the various human affections, passions, emo- 
tions, feelings, and instincts as a third class, separate and 
most important. Even this division may perhaps here- 
after be deemed very imperfect, for, as Lord Bacon ob- 
serves, 6 the subtilty of nature far transcends the subtilty 
of the human understanding.' And if that observation of 
his be true, even as to material and external nature, how 
much more likely is it to be true, of our own mysterious, 
internal, intellectual and moral faculties ! 

Endless have been the controversies on the subject of 

B 



NATURAL SOURCES OF 



CH. I. 



what is called, but inaccurately called, free will ; for a 
will that is not free, is no will at all. 

Yet perhaps there is reason on both sides of those 
controversies. On the one hand it is undoubtedly true 
that many, perhaps most, determinations of the will are 
influenced by external causes ; but it is a hasty and un- 
authorized conclusion that all actions of the will are ori- 
ginated by external causes and by them only. 

On the contrary, it may well be, and it consists with 
daily experience, that the human mind can exercise a 
spontaneity 1 in the strictest sense of that word ; and that 
as the body can originate corporeal motion, so the mind 
can originate thought and intention. It may be per- 
fectly true that in many cases, perhaps in most cases, 
men's intentions and actions are governed by surrounding 
circumstances, and yet true that in many cases they are 
not so governed, and in many more that there is a mixture 
of these motive forces, whether concurrent or conflicting. 

Here modern philosophy, and the ancient and popu- 
lar persuasion of the masses of mankind, in all ages, 
seem to be agreed. For it is past dispute that, whether 
this pure human spontaneity exist or not, it is not 
only conceivable, but actually conceived, believed, and 
supposed to be felt by the immense majority of mankind. 
It has always been so, and the moral sentiments and 
literature of generation after generation assume it, and 
are founded upon it. 

And one might illustrate, if not extend, this observa- 
tion by a further remark. What right has man to sup- 
pose that he, a denizen of this insignificant planet, is at 
the head of intellectual and moral creatures ? At least 
other and superior creatures so endued may in this vast 
1 What the Greeks called abrtlovaia and avT^ vaicrqc. 



en. i. RELIGIO US KNO WLED GJEJ. 3 

universe exist, and the contemplation of such a possibility, 
though proving nothing, may assist our poor earth-born 
conceptions on this mysterious and difficult subject. 

But, besides the understanding and the will, there is a 
third division, which comprehends man's emotional nature, 
and human instinct. 

Those who neglect to inquire into the teaching of 
man's feelings, emotions, or instincts on this subject, per- 
haps neglect the most important source of instruction. 

How often does one meet with learned and accom- 
plished men, whose language is this, though more cour- 
teously expressed : 6 Your arguments are strong, but so 
are the difficulties. The subject is beyond human grasp : 
I know nothing, nor do you.' 

Is not this the very crisis in which to inquire, What 
on this mysterious subject does the very nature of man 
teach ? And here there is no doubt. Does, or does not, 
the history of all mankind, civilized or savage, in all 
ages and in all climates, though in various forms, teach 
the existence of Deity (whether one, or a plurality is noc 
now the question), the propriety, the necessity, and the 
comfort of Divine worship, the hope and fear of a life 
hereafter ? Is or is not Deity — His worship, His provi- 
dence, and man's responsibility — a human instinct ? 
Is it not highly rational to listen with reverence to in- 
stinct where reason falters, and can guide no further, 1 
especially when we see that the promptings of instinct 
on this mysterious subject lead to self-restraint, to hope, 
to virtue, and to happiness ? 

Is, then, the religious instinct of man a fact, or a mere 

1 ' Instinct and reason how shall we divide ? ' — Petok. 
b 2 



4 SO UR CES OF RELIGIO US KNO WEED GE. ch. f . 



fancy ? All history and the actual present condition of all 
nations under heaven show the religious instinct to be 
part of the nature of man. 

Look at the world as it now exists. Everywhere you 
see religion. The Christian religion prevails throughout 
Europe and both Americas. The Mahometan faith at 
one time was supposed to number more adherents than 
Christianity itself, and still it counts its hundred and fifty 
millions of souls. Budhism is the prevailing religion 
among the most populous nations on earth, including the 
Chinese Empire. Brahminism, and the religion of the 
Parsees do not complete the catalogue. Even among 
savages the belief in some supernatural and divine power, 
though under different forms, is universal. 

The human child everywhere, almost as soon as it can 
speak, asks this question : Who made the cattle, the 
horses, the birds, the insects ? 

An instructress is provided for him in all Christian 
countries. 

The child learns the first lessons of religion at the 
mother's knee. Every uncorrupted woman, as she is by 
nature gentle, loving, pure, and susceptible of deep reli- 
gious impressions, so she naturally and almost universally 
forms the mind of her child, with a wisdom far above 
the worldly wisdom of the wise. 

It should seem from these considerations that the reli- 
gious sentiment is a natural instinct. But whether it be 
properly so called or not, at least it is plain that a su- 
perior Power has made effectual provision for the pre- 
valence of religion in some shape or other, in all ages, 
among all mankind. In either case it is a suggestion of 
nature, or, in other and more accurate language, a sug- 
gestion coming from the Authoe of nature Himself. 



CHAPTER II. 



PHILOSOPHICAL INDIFFERENCE. 

There is an obvious and wide distinction "between 
Philosophical indifference, and Philosophical scepticism. 

Philosophical indifference treats the subject of religion 
as beneath its notice. Philosophical scepticism, on the 
other hand, inquires, but, perplexed by difficulties, and 
opposing arguments, neither affirms nor denies, but takes 
refuge in the conclusion, that nothing can be known^y 

At present we only venture to submit a few words on 
Philosophical indifference, and we use the epithet Philo- 
sophical to avoid giving needless offence to many accom- 
plished scientific, and amiable men. 

On Philosophical scepticism, properly so called, some 
observations will hereafter be submitted to the judgment 
of the reader. 

Philosophical Indifference is an extreme, and, like 
most other extremes, wrong. 

Adepts in physical science often make an ostentatious 
profession of indifference to questions touching the First 
Clause. Sometimes this indifference is affectation, some- 
times it is real, and in both cases is often caused by disgust 
at what is deemed the ignorance, presumption, and in- 
tolerance of theologians, and by a secret wish to chill their 
fervour by the calmness and impartiality of philosophy. 
But to a just and unprejudiced understanding, this indif- 
ference must appear unnatural, irrational, and unbecoming. 



6 



PHILOSOPHICAL INDIFFERENCE. ., ch. ii. 



It is unnatural because opposed to the instinct of 
universal man, who is ever craving to know whence he 
came, and whither he is going ; if he had a creator or not ? 
and what manner of being that creator may be. 

It is irrational because it is at least possible that 
moral or physical science, the observation of human life 
or the teachings of history, may, at the lowest, shed some 
light, or furnish some arguments on these primordial 
questions. 

It is unbecoming ; for there is nothing in human 
conduct so becoming and amiable as humility and reserve, 
especially when found (as they often are found) in conjunc- 
tion with extensive and accurate learning, or with profound 
science. Sir Isaac Newton was at once too natural and 
too profound not to feel and to appreciate the relation 
between the heavenly bodies and the Eternal Geometer, 
and too unaffected not to express it, and not only by his 
words, but by his manner. For we are told that he never 
mentioned the name of the Supreme Being without a 
pause before the word ' Grocl ' to express his reverence. 

Philosophical indifference, rather than truth, has too 
often been the practical result of the philosophy of the 
eighteenth century. But that indifference tends to de- 
grade rather than to elevate mankind. If it be the 
result of human inquiry, that inquiry is worse than 
useless. 1 

1 i Dieu, le monde, l'ame, l'existence future, sont des objets qui 
provoquent sans cesse la curiosite de 1'esprit humain, et auxquels il 
revient sans cesse ; car notre nature se sent degradee, lorsqu'elle les 
neglige. L'esprit hurnain a eu beau vouloir se condarnner a l'ignorance 
et a l'indifference en metaphysique ; il a ete force a casser les arrets 
qu'il avait rendu centre lui-meme.' — Cousin. 



7 



CHAPTER III. 

THE E I EST CAUSE. 

As in many other cases, so in this, the truth seems to lie 
between two extremes. It is true on the one hand, that 
our finite conceptions of the infinite must necessarily be 
human and inadequate ; but, on the other hand, it is a 
hasty and indolent inference that, because Grocl is incom- 
prehensible, therefore all natural knowledge of God is 
unattainable by man. It is to assume that because we 
cannot comprehend or know all, we can comprehend or 
know nothing. Much may be comprehended where all 
cannot be comprehended, and much may be known of 
practical and inestimable value, not merely with a reason- 
able, but with a full degree of assurance, where much must 
nevertheless remain unknown. 

It cannot be too often repeated, that it is equally an 
error on the one hand to conclude that we can from 
merely natural sources know nothing of the Divine 
Being ; and on the other hand, because we know some- 
thing, therefore to conclude that Grod is fully compre- 
hensible by man. 

Few, it may be presumed, maintain in words the latter 
position ; but many fail adequately to realize the incom- 
prehensibility of the Divine Nature. 

We have but five senses : only five inlets of external 
knowledge. We are confined to what is relatively but 
a spot in infinite space, and to an instant in unbeginning 



8 



THE FIRST CAUSE. 



ch. nr. 



and endless time ; uninformed of the distant past, and 
blind even to the immediate future. What other exist- 
ences may surround us, had we other organs to discern 
them, we cannot tell; what limits exist to surrounding 
space, or what to time past or time to come, we cannot 
conceive. Our power of understanding what we do see, is 
narrow ; we can think of but one thing at a time ; we draw 
even demonstrable inferences with labour and difficulty, 
and all other inferences are attended with uncertainty. 
We cannot even generalize, or abstract without the help 
of language. 

But the Divine Intelligence at least may (for at pre- 
sent we say no more) have all that knowledge which we 
want ; knowledge unlimited as to space and time, em- 
bracing every existence, every event, and every change, 
great or small, throughout the extent of the Universe. 
There may be other worlds, not even cognizable by 
our senses, yet throughout them all this knowledge may 
extend. All matter and spirit may lie naked before it. 

It may be unlimited as to time. It may comprehend 
all duration past, as well as time present, and all time 
to come. We need the help of memory as to the past, 
and have only the feeble glimmer of conjecture as to 
the immediate future. But to a Supreme Intelligence 
the past and the future may be as perfectly and dis- 
tinctly known as the present : to Him it may be as one 
eternal NOW ! 

Yet observation and experience show that even men are 
well enough able to understand many things about Grod. 
I do not at present say to know, I only say to under- 
stand or comprehend. The existence of some Divine 
Being — eternal, unchangeable, immaterial, omnipresent, 



CH. III. 



THE FIRST CAUSE. 







omniscient, powerful, wise, merciful, holy, and just — is 
not merely understandable by all men, but is in fact 
understood, professed, and to a great extent believed, in 
some shape or other, by the overwhelming majority of 
mankind. This sublime doctrine, so far from requiring 
superhuman abilities to understand it, is every day taught 
to children of tender age, and understood both by teacher 
and learner, quite well enough for all practical purposes. 
Indeed, our own human nature supplies, and may have 
been intended to supply, the imperfect and limited copy, 
or at least the illustration. 

We may already go further, and assert that the exist- 
ence of a Great Intelligent First Cause is more easily com- 
prehensible by our human faculties than the absence of 
such a First Cause. 

All this, it is admitted, evinces no more than our capa- 
city to comprehend, it does not prove the reality of our 
knowledge — in other words, the truth of our conceptions. 

But that we are capable of knowing, as well as in 
some degree comprehending, should antecedently seem 
probable from one or two other considerations. There is in 
man an innate, universal, inextinguishable curiosity on this 
subject. On no other subject has human thirst for know- 
ledge been in all ages so intense. Was this curiosity im- 
planted only to be baffled ? That might indeed be, if it 
were a mere curiosity and nothing more. But it is more 
than a curiosity : it is a want ; a great, an immense prac- 
tical want. This want unsatisfied, man (as experience de- 
monstrates) is restless,' unhappy, and too often vicious : 
this immense want satisfied, he may become, and we every 
day see that he thereby does become, tranquil, happy, 
and virtuous. 



10 



THE FIRST CAUSE. 



CH. III. 



One other observation must be premised before we 
address ourselves to the next inquiry, viz. What, and how 
much it is, that we may really know on this profound and 
awful subject, from what is around us, and within us, aod 
with what degree of certainty. 

That preliminary observation is this : We must not 
distrust the nature, intellectual and moral, with which 
we are endowed, but accept its conclusions. We have 
this means of arriving at the truth, and no better and no 
other. It matters not that we rest on a church, or a reve- 
lation. This church and this revelation must rest on 
man's reason at bottom ; on reason, indeed, employed in 
a different way, but still on reason, or on nothing at all. 
To distrust the conclusions of our nature is to abandon 
ourselves to the weakness and absurdity of universal 
scepticism. 

But, on the other hand, speculative reason is fallible, 
and we may mistake our errors of speculation for the 
teachings of nature. It will be a safeguard against this 
self-deception if, as we proceed in this inquiry, we occa- 
sionally, and even repeatedly, test our conclusions by their 
practical results, and by the general opinions of mankind 
in different ages and nations. 

Not to perplex ourselves with the various theories of 
causation, which have divided philosophers, one thing- 
seems plain, that the human mind cannot conceive of 
any event or change occurring in the material world with- 
out a cause. 1 This stone, or this log of dead wood, yester- 

1 According to Kant, 1 all our knowledge begins from experience, 
but does not come from experience. We must indeed experience or 
observe the event or the change before we search for the cause. But 
the human mind searches for causes because such is its nature? 

' There is/ says Blanco White, ' a source of knowledge respect- 



CH. III. 



THE FIRST CAUSE. 



11 



day lay there, ten yards distant ; to-day it lies here. We 
know, and not merely from past experience, but from our 
intellectual nature itself, that there mast have been a 
cause for this removal. The stone or log, being inert 
matter, some person, or some thing, must have moved it. 
Try to imagine such a removal without a cause : it is not 
only a thing impossible, it is absolutely inconceivable. 

We may be excused perhaps for another illustration. 
This block of stone yesterday was a shapeless mass : to- 
day it is in the same place, but it is in the likeness of a 
human head. We know there must have been a cause. 
It is true the marks of previous intention and design in 
this last instance, show that there must have been an 
intelligent cause, and superadd therefore another reason ; 
still the mere change of the block of stone into this or 
any other shape must have had a cause. 

Try to imagine any event or any change, great or 
small, occurring anywhere in the whole world of matter 
without a cause, and you find the attempt vain. We 
know necessarily, intuitively, instinctively, that of every 
event, of every change, there must have been a cause. 

ing God, which appears to exist in all men. It is this source which 
all thinking men should endeavour to trace up to the very dawn of 
spiritual, i.e. rational, life in man ; carefully examining its pheno- 
menal exhibitions, and anxiously separating- what in it is primitive 
and universal from what is accidental and individual.' 

'The study of nature by itself does not lead to the knowledge 
of the Deity, but this study, assisted by the light of that rationality 
of which the simple but sublime principles are most early developed 
in man, will constantly lead to God.' 

Hume himself, unbeliever and sceptic, as on many points he was, 
expresses himself on this subject very positively. ' The whole frame 
of nature,' he says, ' bespeaks an intelligent author, and no rational 
inquirer can, after serious reflection, suspend his belief a moment 
with regard to the primary principles of genuine theism and religion.' 



12 



THE FIRST CAUSE. 



CH. III. 



To doubt this, is to distrust our nature and its plainest 
teaching. 

As it is with small changes and events, so it is with 
great and important ones, whether adverse or prosperous ; 
whether, on the one hand, occasional earthquakes, storms, 
inundations, famine, pestilence, or on the other, salubrious 
air, fruitful seasons, general health and plenty. Each of 
these events has, and must have had, its causes, both proxi- 
mate and remote. 

So it is with vegetable and animal nature. This oak 
grew in that ancient forest because the wind caused its 
germ, the acorn, to drop from the parent tree in that 
particular spot. It grows like all other oaks, and makes 
leaves, acorns, and timber according to rules punctually 
followed by all oaks, without the least understanding, 
knowledge, foresight, or volition on their part. These 
changes are but a succession of effects from immediate 
causes, blind and unintelligent. But time was (as modern 
science demonstrates) when no oak did or could grow on 
our planet ; when there was neither soil to grow it, nor 
acorn to plant, when the whole terrestrial globe was but 
vapour. How the first oak was introduced we, from 
natural sources, know not. We only know from natural 
sources two things for certain : first, that there must have 
been a cause of this first oak, as of every other event or 
change ; secondly, that it must have been introduced by 
a process totally different from any which we now see or 
of which we have any conception. 

Take animal nature. Gro up at once to the prince of 
sentient beings — to man. From a pair of ignorant and 
besotted savages proceeds another living body — a master- 
piece of refined mathematics, unapproachable chemistry, 
delicate workmanship, yet a model of strength and 



CH. III. 



THE FIRST CAUSE. 



13 



agility, and capable, not only of duration, but of re- 
production. The parents did not cause themselves ; 
nor did they cause their offspring, in the sense of ori- 
ginal causation. They, their fathers, and their chil- 
dren, are all alike but mere blind links in the chain of 
causes. Yet, if anything be clear in the science of Geo- 
logy, this is clear — that time was when man was not. We 
know not from natural sources when he came, nor is it 
material to our argument whether he came in compara- 
tively recent times, or in by-gone distant geological 
periods. Come he certainly did, in some way quite dif- 
ferent from the way in which he now comes. The theory 
of development from inferior animals (even were it well 
grounded) would afford no escape from the conclusion. 
Time was when no animal, no sentient being, existed or 
could exist on our planet. For, as we have already ob- 
served, modern Astronomy and Greology seem to demon- 
strate, that our earth once existed only as an incan- 
descent sphere, or, more accurately speaking, spheroid, 
revolving round the sun ; and possibly even that condition 
may not have been the beginning of its existence. 1 

But this we know, that when man first appeared, he 
did not produce himself; for that would be to affirm that 
he acted before he existed. There must have therefore been 
a cause of man, and of the human mind. 

One cannot help here already asking the most im- 

1 The greatest thickness of the earth's crust, -we are told, is 
about 600 miles, the least about 18 miles. The interior is supposed 
to be rock and other minerals still in a state of fusion at a high tem- 
perature. One degree of temperature is said to be acquired by every 
50 feet of descent from the surface. The temperature of surrounding- 
space is many degrees below zero. But the loss of heat from the 
earth does not exceed one degree in a series of ages. 



14 



THE FIRST CAUSE. 



CH. III. 



portant of all questions : Was that cause of the human 
mind mere unintelligent matter, or was it itself a mind ; 
and if a mind, was it or was it not superior to ours ? 

So again in human affairs, public and private, in the 
revolutions of States, in war and peace, and no less in the 
humble events of private families — humble because more 
obscure, but in the aggregate infinitely more important 
because infinitely more numerous — nothing, as we know, 
happens without a cause and a chain of causes. 

No event or change in the world of matter can happen 
without a cause. Our nature tells us so, and our expe- 
rience and observation ratify and confirm it. 

We are conducted, it is true, in a retrograde series to 
cause behind cause, and cause behind that, and see no 
end of the chain. 

But here again we are met by another ultimate fact 
in our nature. 1 We cannot conceive of a succession of 
mere material causes without a beginning. Suppose a 
number of balls lying close together. Ball z is moved 
by ball y, ball y by ball x, x by w, and so on. Though 
we should go back to the beginning of the alphabet, and 
beyond, without discovering the original impulse, we 
should still be sure that there was one. No ball could 
move itself. No succession of balls could move without 
an original impulse. We know and feel that it is impos- 
sible that there should have been an unbeginning series of 
impulses in mere matter. 

An illustration (I do not say proof) of the same con- 
viction is presented by imagining a chain hanging from 
the clouds ; the lowest link is supported by that next 
above, and this by the next higher link, and so on. 

1 This and the following illustration are borrowed from Wollas- 
ton's Religion of Nature, 5th edition, p. 66. 



CH. III. 



THE FIRST CAUSE. 



15 



Though the upper part of the chain be lost in the clouds, 
and we can discern no original support, we yet know 
that there must be somewhere above it an independent 
sustaining power. In like manner, we know and feel, 
that an unbegiuning series of material causes is an im- 
possibility. 

The necessity of admitting a cause for what we see 
around us, and the impossibility and inconceivability of 
an unbeginning succession of causes, drives us to a First, 
self-existing, originating Cause. 

That First Cause cannot have been caused directly or 
indirectly by any prior cause, for such an hypothesis involves 
us again in the inconceivable supposition of an unbeginning 
series of causes. That Cause cannot have been caused by 
itself, for such a supposition involves the absurdity of its 
acting before it existed. In other words, that Cause has a 
necessary existence. It cannot but exist ; and therefore 
as it has existed from all duration past, so it must exist 
to all duration to come. 1 

It is nothing that we can see or feel. 2 And as there 
are things which by one or other of our senses we know to 

1 Newton went further and held that God was Himself the cause 
both of duration and space, ' Durat se?nper, adest t<btque, durationem 
et spatium, eternitatem ct injmitatem constituit.'' 

2 The Deity, it is true, is not perceptible by any of our senses, 
and this makes the difficulty. It is said, how can we rationally 
believe in the existence of anything, which neither we ourselves, nor 
any other person has ever seen, or perceived by the help of any of 
our senses ? 

But there are things of the existence of which we are fully per- 
suaded, and of which we see the effects, though they are unperceived 
by any of our senses. 

Gravitation is an instance. 

Without gravitation men and other animals could not walk the 
earth, but would be projected into infinite space. By gravitation the 
surface of our planet is preserved both on land and sea. By gravi- 
tation the ocean is retained in its appointed bed. By gravita- 



1G 



THE FIRST CAUSE. 



en. in. 



exist, albeit we can neither see nor feel them, so this 
Great Existence falls not within the cognizance of any of 
our senses. It should seem, therefore, not to have the 
qualities of matter, but, on the contrary, to possess the 
power of independent action and origination, which are 
the attributes of mind, and not of matter. This material 
universe, as we have already observed, could never have 
caused itself ; that is to say, it never could have acted 
before it existed. The earth teems with life, animal and 
vegetable ; all which animals and plants blindly obey cer- 
tain rules which neither they nor the earth ever invented. 
This Great Cause, therefore, is something which is no 
part of the material universe ; but as it was before the 
universe in time, so it is distinct from it in substance : 
though creating, and it may be (for at present we say 
no more) perpetually sustaining and vivifying it. 

But, says an objector, if God be the cause of the world, 
why may there not be a cause of God ? 

The first answer to this objection we have already 
given, namely, that by such an hypothesis you are at 
once involved in the impossible and incomprehensible 
theory of an unbeginning series of causes. For if there 
could be a cause of the Creator, why not a cause of that 
cause, and so on ad infinitum f 

Next, the universe teems with evidence of a cause — 
in other words, of a Creator — but evidence of the cause 

tion pure water having been evaporated from the great salt deep, 
falls again in fresh rain-water to replenish the thirsty earth, 
and thus to sustain the life of the innumerable hosts of men and 
other animals, that crowd our planet, and live on its fruits. 

We all experience, every day and every hour, the effects of gravi- 
tation. We not merely believe, but know, that it exists, yet what it 
is we know not. It is invisible, intangible, inaudible ; it can neither 
be tasted nor smelt. 



CH. III. 



THE FIRST CAUSE. 



17 



of the Creator, even were the supposition deemed possible, 
is entirely wanting. 

Then it is objected : If you must stop somewhere, 
why not stop at the material universe as you see it? 
Why go behind it in search of some other cause ? 

The first answer is one that we have already men- 
tioned: that the material universe cannot have caused 
itself, for that is to assume that it acted before it existed. 

The second answer is, that matter of itself is dead and 
inert : life, or even motion, cannot be communicated to 
matter except ab extra. You cannot therefore rest in 
matter as an active cause, without some cause impelling* 
it. But you may stop at mind as an original cause, for 
in mind you can at least conceive independent action 
and origination. We at least conceive it, if we do not 
experience it, even in the case of our own minds. I do 
not at present affirm that we experience it, because such 
an allegation involves the great controversy of liberty 
and necessity. But that controversy assumes on both sides, 
that the power of even finite minds to originate motion or 
action is at least conceivable. 

Pure reason seems, therefore, to lead us to God. It 
will not allow us to stop short of Him, or to go beyond 
Him. We may the more securely repose on its conclu- 
sions, and feel assured that they are not the mere inge- 
nious speculations of philosophers, because, as we shall see 
more fully hereafter, history shows them to be in substan- 
tial accordance with the conclusions, perhaps the natural 
sentiments, of human nature, instructed or ignorant, in 
almost all places, and in all ages. Sometimes, no doubt, 
the truth has been and is, not indeed denied, but obscured 

c 



18 



THE FIRST CAUSE. 



CH. III. 



by the baseless fables of polytheism, but even there the 
supremacy of one Eternal Mind is sometimes not denied, 
and has been, and is in many instances expressly taught. 

Yet the foregoing argument, strong as it is, has not 
been the argument which has commended itself to the 
^ulk of mankind, as the most obvious and convincing 
proof of Deity. 

The argument from the marks of design everywhere 
displayed in the works of nature has always been felt to 
be the strongest and plainest proof of Deity, as well as 
the most fertile in consequences. It does not, like the 
argument from the necessity of a first cause, stop with 
proving the existence, eternity, and supremacy of that 
first cause, but goes on to demonstrate what it most im- 
ports man to know — that is to say, His power, His wis- 
dom, and His goodness. It is true that some modern 
writers have underrated its cogency. But their opinions 
are not only open to much remark, but are at variance 
with what have ever been the deductions, not only of 
unsophisticated human nature, but of the most eminent 
and highly educated men, as far as history and tradition 
go — that is to say, for several thousand years. Of course 
it was to be expected that this argument, like every 
other, on either side, should be gainsayed. For in the 
great controversy touching religion and morals, every- 
thing that can be said on all sides has been said, and 
repeated, from the plainest truths to demonstrable ab- 
surdity. On these subjects the ancient classical adage is 
abundantly verified : 6 Nihil tarn absurdum, quod non 
qui dam philosophi dixerint.' 

Was not the eye made to see, the ear to hear, the 
complex, but compendious, and compact apparatus of the 
human mouth, at once to breathe, to taste, to eat, to talk ; 



.CH. III. 



THE FIRST CAUSE. 



19 



the legs and feet to walk and run ; the arms and hands 
for a thousand uses of necessity or pleasure ; the stomach 
to digest ; the heart and lungs to circulate and purify 
the blood ? 

No man of ordinary sense, instructed or uninstructed, 
doubts this. 

But what is meant by the expression, the eye tvas 
made to see? Much more is meant than that the eye 
can and does see, or even is adapted for seeing. It is 
meant that it was intended that the eye should see 
before it actually did see — that it was intended that an 
apparatus fitted for this purpose should exist before it 
actually did exist. It is meant that before any human 
eye existed, some intelligence contemplated human sight 
as an end to be attained, and devised the human eye as 
a means of attaining that end. 

Without embarrassing ourselves with discussions as to 
the period when man first appeared on our planet, one 
thing science demonstrates, namely, that time was, when 
man was not; for science shows that during unnum- 
bered ages the globe not only did not, but could not, 
contain a man or woman. The physical condition of the 
earth, as we have already observed, was incompatible with 
human or even animal existence. There was therefore a 
time when, in some way now entirely unknown to us, 
animal life was introduced originally, and a time when 
the first human eye opened to the light, and saw the 
earth and sky. But that eye had already been devised 
and adapted to see. By what ? By whom ? The light 
also had been adapted to that eye beforehand, as well as 
that eye to the light. By what ? By whom ? 

You may say, We know not. 



20 



THE FIRST CAUSE. 



ch. nr. 



That is an answer plausible and apparently humble, 
but it is an ambiguous answer, and in one sense may 
not be true. 

If it mean that you do not know all about it, the 
answer is certainly true ; but if it mean that neither you 
nor anybody else can know, or can reasonably conclude 
anything about it, then the answer is not true. It is 
an instance of a common weakness of the understanding, 
or rather a common failure in the conduct of it. For the 
understanding is misconducted, when we fail to distin- 
guish between what we know of a subject, and what we 
do not know, but suffer our reasonable assurance of what 
we do know, to be disturbed or weakened by what we do 
not know. 

The overwhelming majority of mankind, however, in 
all ages, in all conditions of life, and in all countries, have 
felt no difficulty on the subject, but have answered this 
question in one way, and do still continue to answer it 
in the same way, and affirm that it can be answered in no 
other way. 

The rustic, the unsophisticated man, answers and says 
at once, Grod made the eye. 

The anatomist and man of science, such a man as 
John Hunter, draws the same inference from broader 
premisses. He sees that the human eye did not make 
itself, and that the man himself did not make or devise 
it, nor his parents nor any other man ; yet that it was 
devised by some intelligence perfectly conversant with 
the laws that govern the transmission, the reflection, 
and refraction of light ; that this intelligence knew how 
to make lenses of different powers, how to adjust them 
to the clear perception of near or distant objects, how 



CH. III. 



THE FIRST CAUSE. 



21 



to avail itself of the most ingenious mechanical contri- 
vances in order to turn the eye in every direction, and 
to increase or diminish the light, where to place the 
eye so as to be of most service, and how to protect it 
from injury, to moisten it from time to time, and to 
close and rest it when its help is no longer required ; 
and, lest a single eye, notwithstanding all its fortifica- 
tion of bone and of hair on the brows and eyelids, should 
be injured, to provide every man with two eyes, and so to 
give him in addition a wider circumference, and command 
of vision. 

The man of science, therefore, also concludes that this 
human eye is the work of an intellectual being distinct 
from the eye itself, and prior to it in point of time. 

That an intelligence capable of making the human 
eye did exist long before the human eye itself was 
made is demonstrable. We know that for ages before 
man was introduced numberless animals existed on the 
earth : all betokening the same marvellous skill, but en- 
tirely different from man ; many of them also with the 
power of vision. We may draw the same conclusion from 
the wonderful contrivances in the vegetable world, which 
is more ancient, not only than man, but than most, if 
not all, existing terrestrial animals. Here was the intel- 
ligence of which we are in search already existing, already 
acting, before the human eye was made. 

There was, therefore, a contriving and creating intel- 
lect existing and at work long before the human eye was 
created. 

We may go further, and reverently allege, using, it 
is true, human language and human conceptions, that 
the idea of the human frame and of its various parts 
and details existed in the Divine Mind long before man 



22 



THE FIRST CAUSE. 



CH. III. 



himself existed. This seems plain from the following con- 
siderations : — We know from the discoveries of geologists 
that numberless animals, now extinct, existed on the 
earth for ages before man was introduced. In many of 
these animals of unknown but very remote antiquity 
were already traced and sketched some rudiments of the 
human frame. 6 The recognition,' says Mr. Owen, 4 of an 
ideal exemplar for the vertebrated animals proves that 
the knowledge of such a being as man must have existed 
before man appeared. For the Divine Mind which plan- 
ned the archetype also foreknew all its modifications. 
The archetypal idea was manifested in the flesh under 
divers modifications upon this planet long prior to the 
existence of those animal species which actually exem- 
plify it.' 

By analogy also we are irresistibly led to ascribe to 
a Divine Intelligence such a system of means adapted 
to ends as we behold everywhere around us. Wher- 
ever we find an adaptation of means to ends, and have 
an opportunity of knowing whether there have been a 
contriving mincl or not, we invariably find that there has 
been one. When therefore we see a contrivance, and do 
not know from other sources whether there has been a 
contriver or not, we naturally and irresistibly conclude 
that there has been one. Perhaps this conclusion reposes 
also on another foundation. As we cannot conceive an 
effect without a prior cause, so we cannot conceive an 
effect without an adequate prior cause. And if the effect 
be a contrivance, there can be no adequate cause but a 
contriving mind. Still, whatever confirmation the con- 
clusion may derive from other sources, this inference we 
draw naturally and with assurance from analogy : contri- 



en. in. 



THE FIRST CAUSE. 



23 



vance shows, or, more accurately speaking, implies, a 
contriver. 

We see a telescope adapted to bring distant objects 
within the range of distinct vision. Though we should 
never have seen this or any other telescope made, and 
though we should be entirely ignorant of its history, 
and never have heard of it or of any such instrument 
before, yet analogy tells us at once that this contrivance 
had a contriver. 

Bat there is yet another and cogent proof of a Su- 
preme Intelligent Cause, and that is the relation which 
living bodies bear to inanimate nature. 

The wings of birds are fitted for the air. 
The fins of fish for the water. 

The ear, the lungs, the speech, to the atmosphere, for 
there is no sound in a vacuum. 

The light is adapted to the eye of every living animal, 
and the eye to the light. 

The solid ground by the principle of gravitation 
keeps every terrestrial creature upon it, notwithstanding' 
the inconceivable rapidity of the earth's motion, both 
rotatory and progressing. 

The ocean, by natural forces, evaporates and supplies 
the clouds with the moisture that drops in rain, filling the 
terrestrial springs, and thus providing, and storing up the 
first necessary of life to all vegetable and animal nature. 

But is it possible to ascribe the eye, the ear, the 
hand, the brain, or understanding of man to any cause 
other than the Supreme Intelligence ? 

If so, to what cause or causes ? 



24 



THE FIRST CAUSE. 



CH. III. 



To Chance ? That is to say, to unknown and unintel- 
ligent causes : causes without reason and without design. 

To Fate ? That is, taking the word in its popular 
sense, to a blind, unintelligent, undesigning first cause. 
For if you admit intelligence and design, you come back 
to Deity. 

To a series of second causes ? If an unbeginning 
series is meant, that is, as we have seen, impossible and 
inconceivable. If a beginning series is meant, what, if 
you exclude Deity, can have originated that series but 
Chance or Fate ? And we have just seen what those 
words really mean. 

On any one of these three suppositions you impute 
the most marvellous skill to an unintelligent cause. Nay, 
in the introduction of man upon the earth you impute 
the creation of intelligence itself to an unintelligent 
cause. 

Nor is this the only difficulty. 1 The marks of design, 
the contrivances we see around us, are not only wise in a 
supreme degree, but they are also beneficent in a supreme 
degree. 

Where ? In what, or in whom resides the benevolence 

1 Paley well remarks that 1 this argument for a Divine agency is 
cumulative. The proof is not a conclusion which lies at the end of 
a chain of reasoning, of which chain each instance of contrivance is 
only a link, and of which if one link fail the whole fails, but it is 
an argument separately supplied by every separate example ; the 
argument is cumulative in the fullest sense of that term.' 

And how many of these separate examples, and consequently 
separate arguments, are there not only of the Divine existence, but 
of the Divine intelligence and the Divine goodness ? There is, there- 
fore, a threefold host of cumulative proofs on the question of the 
Divine existence. 

Well does Paley add, 1 No one can doubt except it be by that 
debility of mind which can trust to its own reasonings in nothing.' 



CH. III. 



THE FIRST CAUSE. 



25 



that prompted this beneficence ? Can it reside in Chance, 
or in blind unfeeling Fate? If, indeed, those words 
have in such a connection any meaning. Such a supposi- 
tion is more than impossible : it is a contradiction in 
terms. 

But whatever be the true theory of the argument 
for a creating Intelligence and Goodness drawn from the 
marks of beneficent design everywhere apparent in the 
material world, the practical cogency of that argument 
is undeniable. Human nature is so constituted as, under 
all conditions, at all times, in all places, to feel and con- 
fess its force. Take first the uninstructed multitude — 
that is to say, men so far nearest to a state of nature that, 
though they may have heard of God, they have not been 
corrupted by false learning. Introduce the rustic into 
the dissecting-room : show him the muscles that move the 
human fingers, the circular muscle of the wrist, the rami- 
fication of the nerves hidden under the skin, spreading 
and communicating sensation and the power of motion 
over the palm to the ends of the fingers. He instinctively 
cries, £ God made the hand.' 1 

Consult next the educated and intellectual man. I 
will not say Newton or Bacon, 2 for they were sincere 

1 But supposing that there are barbarous tribes in whom there 
is absolutely no trace at all of religious notions, they are at most 
very rare, and scarcely to be deemed fairer specimens of human 
nature than men born blind, or deaf, or lunatics, or deformed. ' Spe- 
cimen naturae cujuslibet, a natura optima cernendum est' (Cic.) 
The atheism of instructed persons is still more rare, and Seneca's 
remark that it is not only hesitating", but intermitting and tremulous, 
is true. ' Mentiuntur qui dicunt se non sentire esse deum, nam etsi 
tibi affirmant interdiu, noctu tamen et sibi dubitant.' 

2 ' I had rather,' says Lord Bacon, ' believe all the fables in the 
Talmud and Alcoran than that this universal frame is without a mind. 



26 



THE FIRST CAUSE. 



CH. III. 



Christians, and, it may be reasonably objected, were 
prejudiced by education ; but take as examples Socrates 
or Cicero, 1 who lived and died before Christianity ap- 
peared; or Voltaire, who rejected it; 2 or the great Napo- 
leon, who looked at it with the genius of a statesman. 
All recognize in His handiwork the Supreme Artificer. 

Exceptions there were in the ancient world, like the 
followers of Epicurus ; 3 and some few exceptions in modern 
times, like Mirabean. But it is equally remarkable and 
undeniable, that their refusal to infer creating wisdom has 
always been singular, and never generally accepted either 
by the learned or the vulgar. Human nature in the aggre- 
gate, instructed or uninstructed, has in all countries for 
thousands of years — indeed, from the beginning of re- 
corded time — reasoned otherwise, and has from the marks 
of design in nature always and everywhere, in some 

1 Cudworth says of Cicero, ' He was a dogmatic and hearty theist.' 

8 In the latter part of Voltaire's life the argument from design 
was that which most impressed him, and seems to have removed not 
only all doubt, but all fear . of ever doubting again : 1 Tadmets cette 
intelligence supreme, sans craindre que jamais on puisse me f aire changer 
a" opinion. Rien n'ebranle en mot cet axiome, tout ouvrage demonire mi 
ouvrier." 1 

3 I say the followers of Epicurus. For Epicurus himself not only 
was no atheist in the ordinary sense of that term, but, on the contrary, 
held that the existence of Deity was by nature impressed on the mind 
of man in all nations. 1 Solus (i.e. as an individual) eniui Epicurus 
vidit, primum esse Deos, quod in omnium animis eorum notionem 
impressisset natura.' — Cic. 

' Quae est enim gens, aut quod genus hominum, quod non habeat 
sine doctrina anticipationem quandam deorum ? Quam appellat 7rp6- 
\t)\pii> Epicurus, id est anteceptam animo rei quandam informationem, 
sine qua nec intelligi quidquam, nec quaeri, nec disputari potest. 
Cujus rationis vim atque utilitatem ex illo coelesti Epicuri de regula 
et judicio volumine accepimus. 

1 Quod igitur fundamentum est hujus quaestionis id praeclare 
jactum videtis.' — Cic. De Naturd Deorum, i. 17. 



CH. III. 



THE FIRST CAUSE. 



27 



shape or other,, inferred creating power, wisdom, and 
goodness. 

The nature of man himself reveals Grocl, and in a 
peculiar and demonstrative manner, and more especially 
man's intellectual nature considered by itself alone, with- 
out its conclusions, or inferences. 

Man reasons. Can the First Cause that produced not 
only man's bodily frame, but man's reason, be Himself 
devoid of the reasoning faculty, or rather of a faculty 
iu finitely superior ? 

Man is a person — that is to say, an intelligent agent. 
Can the Power that formed man's mind be Himself some- 
thing less than mind — the Creator less than the creature ? 

Some have asserted with Coleridge that man has an 
innate, and intuitive knowledge of some Divine Being. 
This doctrine is no novelty : it was held even by Epicurus 
himself and generally by the ancients. 1 But without en- 
tering into this controversy, it is plain that the constitu- 
tion of man himself, and especially man's intellectual 
nature, at least suggests a (rod to the human mind. 

By the word Grod, or Deity, we mean a person, not a 
material being on the one side nor a mere attribute of 
matter on the other ; but a person, in the sense ascribed 
to the word 'person' by Mr. Locke— that is to say, an 
intelligent, thinking being. 

1 'Cum enim non institute aliquo, aut more, ant lege sit opinio 
constitute, maneatque ad imum omnium firma consensio : intelligi 
necesse est, esse deos, quoniam insitas eorum, vel potius innatas cogni- 
tiones habemus.' — Cic. De Naturd Deorum, i. 17. 

e De quo autem omnium natura consentit, id veruni esse necesse 
est.'— Ibid. ii. 17. 



28 



THE FIRST CAUSE. 



CH. Ill, 



We can at least understand well enough the existence 
of such a being. We ourselves are examples to ourselves 
of what we mean. Indeed, it may well be that our own 
intellectual nature, as it gives us some notion, may give 
us — and may have been intended to give us — the best- 
notion we can form of the Divine nature, if we abstract 
therefrom, as we easily can, human limitations and human 
imperfections. Every child can make these abstractions, 
and multitudes do it every day. 

We thus arrive at the conception of a Supreme 
Thinking Being, distinct from the material universe, 
c eternal, immortal, invisible,' everywhere present, know- 
ing all things, and, so far as we can see, able to do all 
things that do not involve a contradiction. 

The existence of such a personal Deity accounts at 
once for all we see around us. 

And no other hypothesis, conceivable by man, can 
account for it. 

The material universe is not Grod, nor is any part of 
it. Pantheism, it has been truly said, is but a learned 
form of atheism. It takes away Grod by confounding 
Him with the world. The world deified is the world 
without Grod. The material universe consists of matter 
either unorganized or organized. Unorganized matter 
cannot be Grocl. It can make nothing, it can do nothing. 
Its attributes are absence of thought and presence of 
inertia. Its properties, such as gravitation, electricity, 
magnetism, are equally devoid of thought. They cannot 
account for what we see. In them there is no foresight or 
wisdom. They are, in innumerable instances, but the 
passive and obedient servants even of human creatures. 

Organized matter cannot be Grod. No doubt it ex- 
hibits in its construction wisdom the most profound. 



CH. III. 



THE FIRST CAUSE. 



29 



But is that wisdom its own, or is it the wisdom of some 
other being? An oak has no wisdom or thought of any 
kind enabling it to develope itself so beautifully, to plant 
itself so firmly against the winds of heaven, and to provide 
so plentifully for future succession of its like. Inferior 
animals, constructed as they are with such exquisite in- 
genuity, wisdom, and forethought, have themselves but 
little thought or reason, and no more constructed them- 
selves than the oak did. Man, indeed, as compared with 
them, has much thought and reason. But man had no 
more to do with the planning of his own physical, intel- 
lectual, or moral nature, than the meanest insect or than 
blades of grass had with their nature. To this hour the 
bulk of mankind know absolutely nothing of the secrets 
of human action, and the most scientific and instructed 
of mankind know very little. 

Neither, therefore, the material universe as a whole, 
nor any part of it, whether organized or unorganized, is 
God. But still God is ! 

"We neither know nor can imagine any place where 
God is not. God must therefore be some invisible, think- 
ing being, everywhere present, pervading the material 
universe indeed, but distinct from it, and superior to it : 
much more distinct and superior than a workman to his 
work. 

Are the laws of Nature, as they are called, creators, 
or, in other words, God ? 

Let us beware of deluding ourselves with figurative 
and inaccurate language. 

The ivord 6 law ' thus applied is a metaphor. If you 
take it in its metaphorical sense it presupposes and implies 
a lawgiver, in other words, GOD. 

If you take it in a sense not including a superior 



30 



THE FIRST CAUSE. 



CH. III. 



and prescribing power, then it means nothing more than 
a uniform or regular course of proceeding, and leaves the 
question whether there be a lawgiver or not precisely 
where it found it. 

Is Nature Grod ? To him who alleges the affirmative 
we would venture to say, c Come out of the clouds and 
tell us precisely what you mean by the word Nature.'' 

Do you mean an intelligent, thinking being ? If 
that is what you mean, you clo but prefer the word 
4 Nature ' to the word 6 Grod,' changing only the gender. 
Your meaning is the same with that of the theist. We 
might, however, venture to remark that your term 
6 Nature ' does not appear so appropriate, because it is so 
liable to be misunderstood. 

But perhaps you will say, this is not what you mean : 
that by the word 6 Nature ' you mean what is commonly 
called 6 the course of Nature.' 

What is c the course of Nature' ? 

I presume that you would answer that the annual 
revolution of the earth on its axis, giving us day and 
night — that the course of the earth round the sun, be- 
stowing on us change of seasons — that the birth of a child, 
and its growth into a man or woman — are instances and 
illustrations of what you mean by 6 the course of Nature.' 

But it is plain that these processes are not First 
Causes. Many of them — take, for example, the birth and 
growth of human creatures — these are themselves but 
effects, not first causes : effects, too, of comparatively very 
recent origin. It is plain from modern geological in- 
vestigations, that during unknown and incalculable ages, 
not only did not man exist on this planet, but no ani- 
mated nature whatever. Our globe for unmeasured ages 
was, we are told, mere vapour, and after that a molten or 



en. in. 



THE FIRST CAUSE. 



31 



incandescent fluid for unnumbered ages more. The plants, 
the animals, the men we now see must have had, geologi- 
cally speaking, a comparatively recent cause, as well as an 
intelligent cause. 

Is it not plain to unprejudiced inquirers that what is 
called 6 the course of Nature ' must have been established 
by a Supreme and Originating Mind? 

There is full and convincing evidence of one Grod, and 
no evidence whatever of more than one. 

The positive part of this conclusion, as we have already 
observed, has certainly been the inference of mankind in 
all ages and in all countries. Deformed indeed by super- 
stition and polytheism it has been, but nevertheless it has 
always, in some shape or other, been the conclusion, or 
perhaps one might say the sentiment, of universal human 
nature. 1 

Is the Power that formed the intellect of a Newton 
itself unintelligent ? Can man control Nature, and can- 
not the Power that made man do so too ? 

Man is conscious of a moral law. Is the Power that 
made man ignorant of it ? 

But we have on the subject of the First Cause another 

1 Cousin, after paying a tribute to the genius of Kant, ob- 
serves : ' Mais nous avouons que nous preferons encore le sens coni- 
mun aii genie, et l'esprit de tout le monde a celui d'un homme, quel 
qu'il soit. On le sait : nous faisons profession de n'avoir aucune 
opinion particuliere en philosophie, et notre pretention est de nous 
tenir fermement dans la grande route, ou marche l'humanite toute 
entiere, bien convaincus que tous les sentiers detournes oil se laisse 
entrainer le genie lui-meme, n'aboutissent qu'a des precipices.' 

'It has been truly said that man himself in another way re- 
veals God. Man, by his intelligence, rises above Nature. He is a 
power independent of Nature, and capable of resisting and control- 
ling her.' — Sir William Hamilton. 



32 



THE FIRST CAUSE. 



CH. III. 



and independent source of natural knowledge. We hitherto 
have been considering what the human mind or under- 
standing tells us ; but what clo the feelings, the emotions, 
the heart, the instinct, the wants of universal man 
teach ? 

On this question there can be no doubt whatever. 
Forms of belief in Deity, and forms of worship appear 
everywhere, at all periods of human history, and in every 
nation under heaven. 

You are convinced, after all, says the unbelieving 
philosopher, because you wish to be convinced. Do, 
then, men wish to be convinced of the existence of a 
Deity ? Does nature, then, prompt and urge to the be- 
lief ? No doubt it does. 1 But that, so far from being an 
objection, is another argument. The yearning after a 
superior power not only exists, but is strongest in the best 
natures — at once both the cause and consequence of a 
virtuous, intelligent, active, and useful life. 

But where is Grod ? We can conceive no place where 
He is not, no time past when He was not, no time future 
when He will not be. In the language of Newton, 4 Durat 
semper, adest ubique.' 

1 1 Quae gens, est aut quod genus hominum, quod non habeat sine 
doctrina anticipationera quandam deorum quam appellat irpoki^n' 
Epicurus ? '— Cic. Nat. JDcor. i. 32. 

' Nulla gens est neque tarn immansueta neque tarn fera, quae non, 
etiamsi ignoret qualem habere deunideceat, tamen habendum sciat.' — 
Cic. De Legibus, 1. 

i Nulla gens est tain fera, nemo omnium tarn immanis, cujus mentem 
non imbuerit deorum timor.' — Cic. Tusc. ii. 1. 

' Nulla gens usquam est adeo citra leges moresque projecta, ut 
non aliquos deos credat.' — Seneca, Ep. 11. 

'Qpinionum commenta delet dies, naturae judicia confirmat.' — 
Cic. 



33 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE DIVINE BENEVOLENCE. 

This is the attribute of the Divine Being, which is 
clearest of all, which is indubitably and plainly written 
on everything beneath our feet, above our head, and 
around us. And it is written for our learning, and for our 
comfort, that however wretched and hopeless a man may 
be, he is not, as it has been well expressed, 6 an outcast 
on a forsaken and fatherless world. 5 1 

The existence and prevalence of physical evil is un- 
deniable, yet its amount, great as it may appear, is small 
when compared with the immense amount of good. i It 
is,' says Paley, after an able review of the subject, £ a happy 
world after all.' 

The reasons for the existence of physical evil may in 
many, and perhaps in most, cases be discovered, but in some 
cases they still remain, and perhaps will ever remain, in 
obscurity, yet with this observation, that as in many, or 
perhaps in most, cases we can discern reasons for the exis- 
tence of evil, so it is a reasonable conjecture that had we 
deeper knowledge, even we ourselves might be able to ac- 
count for it in more cases, or perhaps in all. It is surely a 
hasty and unauthorized inference, that what we, with our 
limited faculties and imperfect knowledge, cannot explain 
is therefore absolutely inexplicable. It can never be too 



1 Kobert Hall. 

D 



34 



THE DIVINE BENEVOLENCE. 



CH. IV. 



often repeated that a difficulty is one thing, a disproof 
quite a different thing; especially on a subject which it 
is impossible for us fully to comprehend, and where, 
therefore, difficulties are sure to be encountered. 

In this condition of things arises the important and 
practical question. Is the existing mixture of good and 
evil most consistent or most inconsistent with the re- 
ligious theory of the Divine Benevolence ? 

The atheist asks, ' Why this admixture of evil ? ' 

The theist answers, 6 1 can give a reason for much, 
perhaps for most of it ; possibly I could for all, if I knew 
all the facts.' 

6 But now permit me in return to put a question to you ; 
Whence comes all this good ? Grood infinitely greater 
than the evil ; good not accidental or necessary, but evi- 
dently designed and prepared beforehand ; good once not 
existing on this globe at all, or at least not existing in the 
shape in which we now see it.' 

The real state of the case appears to be this. There 
is throughout all orders of animated and sentient beings 
a vast excess of good demonstrably designed, 1 with a 
partial alloy of evil partly explicable, but partly in some 
degree, and at least for the present, inexplicable, yet even 
in this latter case, so far as we can discern, never caused or 
permitted for the mere purpose of inflicting unnecessary 
pain or misery. 

It is surely a hasty and unauthorized inference that 
what we blind mortals cannot explain is therefore inex- 
plicable. This state of things is demonstrative of the doc- 

1 ' Usque in delicias amamur.' — Seneca. 



en. iv, THE DIVINE BENEVOLENCE. So 

trine of a benevolent and wise Creator, and it is absolutely 
irreconcileable with the theory that no such being exists, 
whether you substitute for Him blind destiny, or chance, 
or a being who did not desire and intend the happiness 
of his creatures. 

No apology is due to the reader for here introducing 
some of the remarks of Paley 1 on this part of our subject. 
They are so clear and so conclusive, that it is due, as well 
to the reader as to that eminent writer, not to appropriate 
their substance, but to give them in his own words : — 

6 The goodness of the Deity, says Paley, rests upon two 
propositions : 1st, that in a vast plurality of instances in 
/ which contrivance is perceived, the design of the contri- 
vance is beneficial. 

i 2. That the Deity has superadded pleasure to animal 
sensations beyond what was necessary for any other pur- 
pose, when the purpose, so far as it was necessary, might 
have been effected by the operation of pain. 

e First. No productions of nature display contrivance 
so manifestly as the parts of animals ; and the parts of 
animals have all of them, I believe, a real, and, with very 
few exceptions, a known and intelligible subserviency to 
the use of the animal. Now, when the multitude of 
animals is considered, the number of parts in each, their 
figure and fitness, the faculties dependent upon them, the 
variety of species, the complexity of structure, the success 

1 The present writer lias the less scruple to do this, as Paley 
himself lias wice stated that he is himself indebted for many 
of them tc the Pev. Dr. Balguy's treatise on the Divine Be- 
nevolence, a book which went through many editions, and is well 
deserving- of republication and illustration by a writer conversant 
with the advanced state of modern science. 

d 2 



36 



THE DIVINE BENEVOLENCE. ch. it. 



in so many cases and felicity of the results, we can never 
reflect without the profoundest admiration upon the 
character of that Being from whom all these things have 
proceeded ; we cannot help acknowledging what an exer- 
tion of benevolence creation was, of a benevolence how 
minute in its care, how vast in its comprehension ! 

c Dead matter is nothing. The parts, therefore, espe- 
cially the limbs and senses of animals, although they 
constitute in mass and quantity a small portion of the 
material creation, yet, since they alone are instruments of 
perception, they compose what may be called the whole 
of visible nature estimated with a view to the disposition 
of its Author. Consequently it is in these that we are to 
seek His character. It is by these that we are to prove 
that the world was made with a benevolent design, nor is 
the design abortive. 

' It is a happy world after all. The air, the earth, the 
water, teem with delighted existence. 

6 A bee among the flowers, in spring, is one of the most 
cheerful objects that can be looked upon. Its life appears 
to be all enjoyment, so busy and so pleased; yet it is 
only a specimen of insect life with which, by reason of the 
animal being half-domesticated, we happen to be better 
acquainted than we are with that of others. The whole 
insect-winged tribe, it is probable, are equally intent 
upon their proper employments, and, under every variety 
of constitution, gratified, and perhaps equally gratified, 
by the offices which the Author of their nature has 
assigned to them. 

c But it is not for youth alone that the great Parent of 
creation hath provided. Happiness is found with the 
purring cat, no less than with the playful kitten ; in the 
arm-chair of dozing age, as well as in either the spright- 



CH. TV. 



THE DIVINE BENEVOLENCE. 



37 



liness of the dance or the animation of the chase. To 
novelty, to acuteness of sensation, to hope, to ardour of 
pursuit, succeeds what is, in no inconsiderable degree, an 
equivalent for them all, " perception of ease." Herein is 
the exact difference between the young and the old. The 
young are not happy but when enjoying pleasure ; the 
old are happy when free from pain. And this constitution 
suits with the degrees of animal power which they 
respectively possess. The vigour of youth was to be 
stimulated to action by impatience of rest, whilst to the 
imbecility of age quietness and repose become positive 
gratifications. 

6 In one important respect advantage is with the old. 
A state of ease is, in general, more attainable than a state 
of pleasure. A constitution, therefore, which can enjoy 
ease is preferable to that, which can taste only pleasure. 
This same perception of ease oftentimes renders old age a 
condition of great comfort, especially when riding at its 
anchor, after a busy or tempestuous life. It is well de- 
scribed by Rousseau to be the interval of repose and enjoy- 
ment, between the hurry, and the end of life. 

6 How far the same cause extends to other animal 
natures cannot be judged of with certainty. 

4 1 am far even, as an observer of human life, from 
thinking that youth is its happiest season, much less the 
only happy one. 

4 To the intelligent and the virtuous, old age presents 
a scene of tranquil enjoyments, of obedient appetite, of 
well-regulated affections, of maturity in knowledge, and of 
calm preparation for immortality. In this serene and 
dignified state, placed as it were on the confines of two 
worlds, the mind of a good man reviews what is past with 
the complacency of an approving conscience, and looks 



•38 



THE DIVINE BENEVOLENCE. en. iv. 



forward to the future with humble confidence in the 
mercy of God, and with devout aspirations towards His 
eternal and ever-increasing favour. 1 

6 But it will be said that the instances we have brought 
forward, whether of vivacity or repose, are picked and 
favourable instances. 

6 We answer, first, that they are instances nevertheless 
which comprise large provinces of sensitive existence, 
that every case which w r e have described is the case of 
millions. 

c Secondly, we contend that throughout the whole of 
life, as it is diffused in nature, and, as far as we are 
acquainted with it, looking to the average of sensations, 
the plurality and the preponderancy is in favour of 
happiness by a vast excess. In our own species — in which, 
perhaps, the assertion may be more questionable than in 
any other — the prepollency of good over evil, of health, for 
example, and ease over pain and distress, is evinced by the 
very notice which calamities excite. This shows that the 
common course of things is in favour of happiness ; that 
happiness is the rule, misery the exception. Were the 
order reversed, our attention would be called to examples 
of health and competency, instead of disease and want. 

6 One great cause of our insensibility to the goodness of 
the Creator is the very extensiveness of His bounty. We 
prize but little what we share in common with the rest, 
or with the generality of our species. The common 
benefits of our nature entirely escape us, yet these are the 
great things. These constitute what ought most properly 
to be accounted blessings of Providence ; what alone, if 

1 This is a quotation by Paley himself, as he candidly states, from 
the writings of Dr. Percival, of Manchester. 



CH. IV. 



THE DIVINE BENEVOLENCE. 



39 



we may so speak, are worthy of its care. Nightly rest and 
daily bread, the ordinary use of our limbs, and senses, and 
understandings, are gifts which admit of no comparison 
with any other. Yet, because almost every man we meet 
with possesses these, we leave them out of our enumeration. 
They raise no sentiment, they move no gratitude. Now, 
herein is our judgment perverted by our selfishness. A 
blessing ought, in truth, to be the more satisfactory — the 
bounty, at least, of the donor is rendered more conspicuous 
— by its very profusion, its commonness, its cheapness ; by 
its falling to the lot. and forming the happiness of the 
great bulk and body of our species as well as of ourselves. 

6 But pain, no doubt, and privations exist in numerous 
instances and to a great degree, which collectively would 
be very great, if they were compared with any other thing 
than the mass of animal fruition. For the application, 
therefore, of our proposition to that mixed state of things 
which these exceptions induce, two rules are necessary, and 
both, I think, just and fair rules. 

6 One is, that we regard those effects alone which are 
accompanied with proofs of intention ; the other, that 
when we cannot resolve all appearances into benevolence 
of design, we make the few give place to the many ; the 
little to the great : that we take our judgment from a 
large and decided preponderancy, if there be one. 

'When God created the human species, either He 
wished their happiness, or He wished their misery, or He 
was indifferent and unconcerned about either. 

'If He had wished our misery, He might have made sure 
of His purpose by forming our senses to be so many sores 
and pains to us, as they are now instruments of gratifica- 
tion and enjoyment, or by placing us amidst objects so ill 



40 



THE DIVINE BENEVOLENCE. 



suited to our perceptions as to have continually offended 
us, instead of ministering to our refreshment and delight. 
He might have made, for example, everything we tasted 
bitter, everything we saw loathsome, everything we touched 
a sting, every smell a stench, and every sound a discord. 

6 If He had been indifferent about our happiness or 
misery, we must impute to our good fortune (as all design 
by this supposition is excluded) both the capacity of our 
senses to receive pleasure, and the supply of external 
objects fitted to produce it. 

c But either of these, and still more both of them, being 
too much to be attributed to accident, nothing' remains 
but the first supposition : that Grocl, when He created the 
human species, wished their happiness, and made for 
them the provision which He has made with that view 
and for that purpose. 

'The same argument may be proposed in different 
terms, thus : — 

' Contrivance proves design, and the predominant ten- 
dency of the contrivance indicates the disposition of the 
designer. The world abounds with contrivances, and all 
the contrivances, which we are acquainted with, are 
directed to beneficial purposes. Evil no doubt exists, but 
is never, that we can perceive, the object of contrivance. 
Teeth are contrived to eat, not to ache ; their aching now 
and then is incidental to the contrivance, perhaps insepa- 
rable from it ; or even, if you will, let it be called a defect 
in the contrivance, but it is not the object of it. This is 
a distinction which well deserves to be attended to. In 
describing implements of husbandry you would hardly say 
of the sickle that it was made to cut the reaper's hand, 
though, from the construction of the instrument and the 
manner of using it, this mischief often follows. But if 



CH. IV. 



THE DIVINE BENEVOLENCE. 



41 



you had to describe instruments of torture or execution, 
this engine, you would say, is to extend the sinews, this 
to dislocate the joints, this to break the hones, this to 
scorch the soles of the feet. Here pain and misery are 
the very objects of the contrivance. 

6 ]Now, nothing of this sort is to be found in the works 
of nature. We never discover a train of contrivance to 
bring about an evil purpose. 

4 There is a class of properties which may be said to be 
superadded from an intention expressly directed to happi- 
ness, an intention to give a happy existence distinct from 
the general intention of providing the means of existence, 
and that is of capacities for pleasure in cases wherein, 
so far as the conservation of the individual or of the 
species is concerned, they were not wanted, or wherein the 
purpose might have been seemed by the operation of pain. 

e The provision which is made of a variety of objects 
not necessary to life, and ministering only to our pleasures 
and the properties given to the necessaries of life them- 
selves, by which they contribute to pleasure as well as 
preservation, show a further design than that of giving 
existence. 

c The necessary purposes of hearing might have been 
answered without harmony, of smell without fragrance, of 
vision without beauty. 

e I allege these as two felicities, for they are different 
things, yet both necessary ; the sense being formed, the 
objects which were applied to it might not have suited 
it : the objects being fixed, the sense might not have 
agreed with them. A coincidence is here required which 
no accident can account for. 

' There are three possible suppositions on the subject 
and no more : — 



42 



THE DIVINE BENEVOLENCE. 



CH. IV. 



6 The first, that the sense by its original constitution 
was made to suit the object. 

6 The second, that the object by its original constitution 
was made to meet the sense. 

6 The third, that the sense is so constituted as to be 
able, either universally or within certain limits, by habit 
and familiarity to render every object pleasant. 

6 Whichever of these suppositions we adopt, the effect 
evinces on the part of the Author of Nature a studious 
benevolence. 

6 The quantum in rebus inane, whether applied to our 
amusements or to our graver pursuits (to which in truth it 
sometimes equally belongs), is always an unjust complaint. 
If trifles engage and if trifles make us happy, the true 
reflection suggested by the experiment is upon the ten- 
dency of nature to gratification and enjoyment, which 
is, in other words, the goodness of its Author to His 
sensitive creation. 

c Eational nature also exhibits qualities which help to 
confirm the truth of our position. 

6 The degree of understanding found in mankind is 
usually much greater than what is necessary for mere pre- 
servation. The pleasure of choosing for themselves and 
of prosecuting the object of their choice should seem to 
be an original source of enjoyment. The pleasures re- 
ceived from things great, beautiful, or new, from imitation 
or from the liberal arts, are in some measure not only 
superadded but unmixed qualifications, having no pains to 
balance them. 

4 Thus,' adds Paley, £ it appears, first, that in a vast 
plurality of instances in which contrivance is perceived 
the design of the contrivance is beneficial. Secondly, that 
the Deity has added pleasure to animal sensations beyond 



ch.iv. THE DIVINE BENEVOLENCE. 43 



what was necessary for any other purpose, or when the 
purpose, so far as it was necessary, might have been 
effected by the operation of pain. 

'Whilst these propositions are maintained we are au- 
thorized to ascribe to the Deity the character of benevo- 
lence, and what is benevolence at all must in Him be 
infinite benevolence, by reason of the infinite, that is to 
say, the incalculably great number of objects upon which 
it is exercised.' 

Are not the complaints, desires, and demands of most 
men on this subject somewhat unreasonable ? 

Notwithstanding the bounty of Providence in allotting 
to us so large an amount of happiness, and naturally for so 
long a period, when compared with the life of most other 
animals, together with at least the hope and expectation 
of a hereafter, we complain that we have not happiness 
enough, nor secure enough, nor long enough. 

Moreover, goodness in the Divine character does not 
stand alone ; it exists in conjunction with wisdom un- 
searchable, and with power to which we can ascribe no 
limits. 



44 



CHAPTER V. 

DEATH AND A FUTUPE LIFE. 

Wherever on our planet there is life, there is death. 
All animated nature dies ; all the inhabitants of the 
earth, the sea, the rivers, the atmosphere, die. By this 
arrangement inconceivably multitudinous and various 
races of sentient beings successively taste the novelty and 
■the pleasures of life, and most of them, before satiety ap- 
pears, withdraw and give place to their successors. Were 
this not so the means of sustenance would fail, or there 
would not be on the globe so much as mere standing- 
room. 

Without death there could not be birth. Constituted 
as we are, there would be no parents, no children, no con- 
sanguinity, no sweet family relations, no youth — all would 
be old age. Mankind would be condemned to a life of 
endless, uninteresting, and tiresome uniformity and repe- 
tition. 

Death was classed by the ancient philosophers among 
the great gifts of Nature, 6 inter rnunera naturae.' 

On this vain world we close the willing eye j 
'Tis the great birthright of mankind to die. 

4 The fear of death,' says Lord Bacon, 6 as a tribute 
due unto Nature, is weak. It is as natural to die as to be 
born, and to a little infant perhaps the one is as painful 
as the other.' 



CH. T. 



DEATH AND A FUTURE LIFE. 



45 



As it is, all inferior animals have life, but without 
any knowledge or fear of death. Providence, in its mercy, 
has in this way removed death from their eyes. 

But there is on this planet of ours one created being, 
and only one, who knows beforehand that he must die, 
and knows it certainly and better than anything else, 
death being, among human affairs, the only future event 
which is absolutely certain to happen. 

Care, however, has been taken that even in man's case 
the certainty of this event shall not distress him, but 
rather cheer and improve him. First of all, the time and 
manner of his death are carefully hidden from him. If a 
man foreknew when and how he should die, he would at 
once begin to calculate how many years, and then how 
many months or days, he had to live and to enjoy the 
society of his wife, his children, or his friends. The fore- 
taste of suffering, and its fatal results, at a certain pre- 
fixed period would make life intolerable. He would at 
once be in the position of a condemned criminal. And 
much worse, if he foreknew all this from the first. Still 
worse were his condition, if he foreknew the time and 
moment of the death of his dearest friends, and members 
of his family. 

And although a period of life may at length arrive, 
in comparatively few cases, when the man, being now 
very old, knows for certain that death cannot be far off, 
yet experienced physicians tell us, and daily observation 
shows, that the old man still persists in regarding death 
as being yet at some distance. 

And even when the aged pilgrim lies down on that 
bed from which he knows he is not to rise, and is aware 
that his last hour has struck, medical men inform us that 



4G 



DEATH AND A FUTURE LIFE. 



CH. T. 



his mind is generally calm. He experiences no painful 
feeling either of regret or terror, but only a sort of diffi- 
culty in existing ; 1 and it is an observation nearly two 
thousand years old, that the wiser he is, the more tran- 
quilly does he leave this life. 6 Sapientissimus quisque 
sequissimo animo moritur.' 2 

But there are, and always have been, two views of death 
— the Epicurean view, and the religious view. According 

1 ' Dans la vieillesse et dans les maladies dependantes de la de- 
struction des forces vitales, comme, par exernple, dans les diverses 
hydropisies, dans la gangrene, etc., l'esprit est calme, l'ame n'eprouve 
aucim sentiment penible de terreur ou de regret. Cependant le 
malade voit alors, san3 aucun doute, approclier le coup fatal ; il 
parle de son propre mort comme de celle d'un etranger, et quel- 
quefois il en calcule le moment avec une precision remarquable. 

' Enfm dans la mort senile, le malade n'eprouve que cette difficulte 
d'etre clont le sentiment fut en quelque sorte la seule agonie de 
Fontenelle. On a besoin de se reposer de la vie, comme d'un travail 
dont les forces ne sont plus en etat de se prolonger. Les erreurs 
d'une raison defaillante, ou d'une sensibilite qu'on egare en la dirigeant 
vers les objets imaginaires, peuvent seules a ce moment empeclier de 
gouter la mort comme un doux sommeil.' — Cabcmis. 

This eminent but sceptical physician had attended the death- 
beds of many remarkable men, and among others those of Mirabeau 
and Condorcet. 

2 1 The fear of death/ says Lord Bacon, ' as a tribute due unto 
Nature is weak. It is as natural to die as to be born. There is 
no passion so weak, but it mates and masters the fear of death. Be- 
venge triumphs over death : love slights it, honour aspireth to it, 
grief flieth to it, fear prse-occupieth it. Nay, Seneca adds niceness 
and satiety : " Cogita quamdiu eadem feceris : mori velle, non tantum 
fortis et miser sed etiam fastidiosus potest." ' 'The Stoics/ he adds, 
' bestowed too much cost upon death, and by their great preparations 
made it appear more fearful. Better saith he, "qui finem vitae 
extremum inter munera posuit naturae." It is as natural to die as to 
be born, and perhaps to a little infant the one is as painful as the 
other.' 



DEATH AND A FUTURE LIFE. 



47 



to the first view, death extinguishes man ; according to 
the second view, death does but introduce man to another 
life. This second and brighter view has been in all ages 
entertained by the nations of mankind. 1 

A life beyond the tomb can neither be proved nor dis- 
proved by reason. 

It is certainly possible, and even on merely natural 
grounds seems not improbable. 

On this profound inquiry, of all other inquiries by far 
the most interesting to unsophisticated man, the science 
of mere external nature sheds but little light. As far as 
any assistance from natural science is concerned, men are 
nearly where they were five thousand years ago. She has 
done little more than demonstrate her inability either to 
withdraw the veil, or mitigate the uncertainty. 

No doubt can exist of its possibility. Existences and 
worlds invisible to us, inappreciable by any of our senses, 
may at this moment occupy the same spot in creation with 
ourselves. Nay, place itself may be but an incident 
pertaining to a material and inferior creation. 

Life, according to some of the greatest physiologists, 
is something superadded to material organization, but 
quite distinct from it. 

Nay, a future life is not impossible even on the theory 
of a Materialist. According to Mr. Locke, personal iden- 
tity consists in consciousness, which consciousness, if it be 
an incident of matter, the Deity may, according to that 
eminent writer, transfer at will from one portion of matter 
to another. 

1 In the original institutions of the Great Lawgiver Moses no 
belief in a future life seems to have been expressly taught, though 
there, as elsewhere, it afterwards appeared and prevailed. 

In the classical religions of Greece and Rome it was always a 
portion of the popular belief, and of most philosophers. 



48 



DEATH AND A FUTURE LIFE. 



CH~. V. 



jNow, as a future life is certainly possible, is it pro- 
bable? 

All nations, at least all nations formed into a regular 
society, hold it ; have ever held it ; and from the past, if 
we are to judge of the future, ever will hold it. Some sects 
of philosophy have denied it, but their negative doctrines 
have never permanently spread among mankind. 1 

Kay, even the power of government is inoperative to 
suppress the popular conviction of man's immortality. In 
vain the Revolutionary Government of France inscribed 
over the public cemetery of Pere la Chaise £ Death is an 
eternal sleep ! ' The public were shocked, not convinced. 

It is remarkable that the freer the scope given to 
instinct, the firmer the persuasion of it. 

Women seldom doubt it. Savages do not doubt it. 
Men of vast practical designs and vehement action, seldom 
doubt it. Sufferers generally hold it firm. It is quiet 
xeasoners who doubt — men in an unnatural condition — 
who venture to discard popular feelings, and instinctive 
philosophy, and in so doing often run into the wildest 
absurdities. And even speculative men themselves, in 
general, rather doubt than deny ; and some, even of the 
wisest of them, affirm. 

Personal and lengthened experience of human exist- 
ence tends to produce, or confirm the expectation of a 
future life. Even John Stuart Mill, towards the end of 
his career, as he approached the tomb, declared that the 
reasons in favour of another life seemed to him rather to 
preponderate. 

1 £ Toutes les nations policees, depuis l'lnde jusqu'au. fond de 
l'Europe, crurent en general une vie a venir, quoique plusieurs sectes 
de philosophes eussent une opinion contraire.' — Voltaire. 



DEATH AND A FUTURE LIFE. 



40 



It is a corollary from the natural persuasion of the 
Divine Justice. For, if goodness is to be rewarded, and 
wickedness to be punished, and neither to be done here, 
both are to be done hereafter. 

As the hope of a future life is the delightful anticipa- 
tion of the good man, so the fear of it is a curb on all 
men. 

At the lowest, the wisest and most experienced of man- 
kind cannot deny its possibility. 

A friend, writing to Yoltaire, plumes himself on 
having escaped all fears extending beyond the grave. 6 1 
congratulate you,' says the aged philosopher of Ferney, 
'but I have not got so far.' 

Indeed, hope and fear are both reasonable, even al- 
though probability should point the other way. 

No one can deny the possibility of a life beyond the 
grave. Natural appearances are against it, but there are 
strong reasons for it. 

The good man, as we have already observed, naturally 
desires it, the bad man as naturally fears it. 

It is not unreasonable to entertain fear even of that 
which seems unlikely to happen, but which we know may 
happen. It is not only not unreasonable, but it would be 
unreasonable and impossible not to fear. The known pos- 
sibility of an evil is rationally and practically a ground of 
fear. 

So, on the other hand, even the possibility of a future 
life, though it were improbable, is a rational ground of 
hope. What would even this life be, if without hope of 
various kinds ? Certainty supersedes hope altogether, 
but probability encourages it, and even bare possibility 
admits it. 

E 



50 



DEATH AND A FUTURE LIFE. 



CH. Y. 



But in death, what an inestimable treasure this hope 
is, both to the affectionate heart that is going before, 
and to the affectionate hearts that are left behind ! 
Eternal, hopeless separation ! too dreadful to contemplate. 
Bachelors and selfish men, though they be philosophers, 
can very imperfectly estimate the force of these feelings. 
But the father and mother of a family, or the affectionate 
child, can do so much better. Here, again, Nature 
prompts and almost compels the hope of a life beyond 
the grave. 

The greatest of men have believed in it in ancient 
and modern times, both during their life and health and 
strength, and in the very article of death itself. 

When a doctrine thus appears to be a suggestion of 
Nature, why may we not conclude and say that Nature 
teaches it, as it must be admitted she could, by a mi- 
raculous suspension or inversion of her laws ? 

All legislators are agreed that belief in a future life is 
a doctrine essential to the very existence of society. The 
municipal law can only punish, and so endeavour to pre- 
vent the repetition of open offences ; not secret ones. The 
evil dispositions that lead to crime, and especially secret 
crimes, can only be curbed, but in thousands of cases they 
are curbed effectually, and suppressed by the apprehension 
of something after death. 

The practical moralist agrees with the legislator. The 
belief, or at least the hope or the apprehension of a future 
life, may not be indispensable to the virtue of every man, 
but it is so to the virtue of most men, and is both a re- 
straint and support to all men. Nothing practically raises 
out of the slough of sensuality and selfishness like the 



DEATH AND A FUTURE LIFE. 



51 



firm belief of it ; nothing degrades and brutalizes more 
than the absolute rejection of it. 

It is not merely the popular persuasion of savages, but 
of all civilized nations, and of the greatest practical men 
in them. 

To act on the supposition of its truth is all gain and 
no loss. To act on the contrary supposition, certainly 
may turn out to be an error, — a losing and unnatural 
one for this life, and a fatal one for the next. Every 
prudent man is driven and shut up at least to act on 
the supposition of its truth. 

The hope of a life hereafter is with the good man not 
only a cheerful and agreeable state of mind, but a rational 
one on any supposition. 

If the evidence of a life beyond the grave appears to 
him strong though not demonstrative, hope is a posture 
of mind strictly rational and pleasant. 

Even if the evidence appears to him weak and the 
negative evidence strong, yet still hope is rational ; for 
first a future life is at the very lowest both conceivable 
and possible, and next even if the hope should turn out 
to be unfounded, even then the good man can never be 
conscious of disappointment. 

But a man who lives and acts on the contrary hy- 
pothesis, and prefers to do so, may be disappointed and 
■disconcerted. 1 

1 What Pascal says of the being of a God may with equal truth 
be applied to the doctrine of a future life, and, indeed, to the whole 
body of rational religious doctrine : — 

' II est certain que Dieu est, ou qu'il n'est pas ; il ny a point de 
milieu. II y a un chaos infini entie ces deux extremites. II se joue 
im jeu a cette distance infinie, ou il arrivera croix ou pile. Que 

e 2 



52 



DEATH AND A FUTURE LIFE. 



CH. T. 



At the approach of death no man can be sure that his 
reason, already weakened by disease, and at the point of 
leaving him, will continue to support him. He is too 
weak to reason, but not too weak to hope or fear, nor too 
weak to require and to receive the support and com- 
forts of religion. 

The greatest and ablest men have found themselves 
at last in this condition. 

Are brutes to enjoy a future life too ? There are not 
the same reasons to expect it for them. They have no 
notion of it ; they have no moral sense, and no use of 
language. They have no virtue to be sustained by the 
expectation of it. They can and do exist and fulfil all 
the purposes of their nature without it. They cannot fore- 
see the certainty of their own deaths as men do, and do 
not need it. 

And yet it is said how like their organization is to 
ours, how improbable that man should have an immor- 
tal soul and a brute have none ! But the works of Grod 
are various, beyond our finite conceptions, and numerous 
are the instances where analogy proceeds to a certain 
point, and then a striking difference begins. 

gagerez-vous ? Par raison vous ne pouvez dire que Dieu est ; par 
raison vous ne pouvez le nier. Ne blarnez done point de faussete ceux 
qui ont fait un choix, car vous ne savez pas s'ils ont tort, ou s'ils out 
mal choisi.' 



CHAPTEE VI. 

PROVIDENCE. 

By Providence is here meant the prevision, and preordi- 
nation of events by the Sovereign Intelligence. 

There are but three original causes to which the first 
origin of particular events have been, are, or can be 
ascribed. 

Those original causes are : Chance, Fate, or Provi- 
dence. 

Secondary causes, indeed, intermediate or proximate, 
are innumerable. 

What is the meaning of the word Chance ? The 
word Chance or Accident has in its ordinary use more 
meanings than one. Sometimes it is used in a popular 
and inaccurate sense to denote the absence of a cause. 
Sometimes a cause unknown to the person using the 
word. Sometimes an unintelligent or undesigning cause. 

Now to say that any change or event happens by 
chance in its first sense, is to say that the event comes to 
pass without any cause at all. This is impossible ; we 
are so constituted by nature that we cannot conceive of 
any change or event coming to pass in the world of matter 
without any cause at all. And our actual experience of 
the material world fortifies our natural and instinctive 
conclusion. We never knew, or heard, of any event or 



PROVIDENCE. 



CH. VI. 



change where man had an opportunity of tracing whether 
there were a cause or not, which event or change was not 
due to some cause. 

Things, therefore, cannot and do not happen from 
chance used in its first sense — that is to say, from no 
cause at all. And when we in colloquial language say 
things happen from Chance, using the word in this sense, 
we call a mere negation by a positive name, and care- 
lessly imagine that this name represents a real existence. 

The second meaning of the word Chance is an Un- 
known Cause ! To say, therefore, that events happen by 
chance in this second sense, is merely to say that the 
cause of them is to us unknown. We personify our igno- 
rance of the cause by calling that ignorance Chance, and 
so again delude ourselves by a figure of speech. 

The third sense of the word Chance is this : an Unin- 
telligent, Undesigning Cause. No doubt the greater 
number of changes and events happen immediately from 
such proximate causes. But these proximate causes 
are merely events already caused, and are themselves but 
secondary causes. With respect to their own antecedent 
causes, they are passive ; and with respect to their effects, 
they are merely instrumental. They are not, and can- 
not be, first or original causes. 

Then can the first origin of events be ascribed to 
Fate? 

Fatwm, fata ; — fate — the fates — necessity. What is 
the meaning of these popular expressions, in different 
languages ? Their meaning is cloudy and confused, but 
it is conceived that these several names can mean 



en. vi. 



PROVIDENCE. 



55 



nothing else than one of these three things : first, a 
fixed concatenation of passive and instrumental causes, 
going hack to all eternity; or secondly, such a series 
originating in a first cause unintelligent and undesigning ; 
or thirdly, originating in a first cause, endued with in- 
telligence, and exercising design. 

Fate, in the first of these meanings, cannot be the cause 
of events, for we have already seen that a series of passive 
and instrumental causes, issuing from all eternity with- 
out any first cause at all, is not only a gratuitous but 
an impossible hypothesis. And not only so, but to an 
intellectual nature constituted as ours is, an incon- 
ceivable one. There is, therefore, no such thing as Fate 
in the first sense. Indeed, the popular notion of Fate, 
both in the ancient and modern world, seems darkly to 
hint at original design by some unknown power. 

If by Fate is meant, next, a series of events origi- 
nating in a first cause, unintelligent and undesigning, 
we have already seen that there is abundant and over- 
whelming evidence of intelligence and design in the first 
cause. No conclusion, not susceptible of mathematical 
demonstration, is so variously and satisfactorily proved. 
Fate, in its second sense, therefore, is not the cause of 
events. 

Fate in its third sense — that is to say, a first cause 
endued with intelligence, and exercising design — is but 
another, but far less appropriate name for Deity, 

Fate, therefore, if it means anything distinct from 
Grod, is not the original cause from which events flow. 

But if neither Chance nor Fate can be original 
cause of events, then no other cause remains but the 



5G 



PROVIDENCE. 



en. vi. 



prevision and direction of events by a Sovereign In- 
telligence — in other words, by Divine Providence. And 
this conclusion is no mere philosophical speculation, but 
is in harmony with the general, and, as it should seem, 
with the natural, sentiments of mankind, whether in- 
structed 1 or ignorant ; not only now, but in all ages past ; 
and if from the past we may judge of the future, in all 
ages to come. 

That there is a Providence is therefore necessarily 
admitted by all men who believe in God. 

But is that Providence general or particular ? 

Many who believe in a general providence, are never- 
theless slow to admit a particular providence. 

But what is a general providence ? The word general 
is an artifice of language, adapted to our limited know- 
ledge, and limited powers of contrivance and pre-arrange- 
ment — to our poor human providence. Divine Providence 
may comprehend all particular events, small as well as 
great, distant as well as near ; the history, not merely 
of worlds and empires, but of individuals. For what is 
a c state ' or 4 empire ' but an aggregation of individual 
men and women ? Whoever or whatever fully and accu- 
rately foresaw and foreknew the future of that state or 
empire foresaw and foreknew the future of the indi- 
viduals from whom it rose, for individuals are the only 
real human existences. 

We at present only say may comprehend. But when 
one considers the boundless power, knowledge, forethought, 
and wisdom which formed not only our sun, our earth, 

1 So reasoned the Stoics. Accordingly Seneca says that God is 
4 prima omnium causa ex qua ceterae pendent.' 



CH. VI, 



PROVIDENCE. 



57 



the other planets of our system, but innumerable systems 
besides, and the component parts and arrangements of 
all those systems, who is to set or assume limits to the 
Divine Intelligence in minute things, any more than in 
great things ? 

On whom does the burden of proof lie ? On those 
who presume not to assign any limits to the Divine 
Intelligence, or on those who do assign limits ? Surely 
on those who assign limits. And the more so because 
they seem to be making Grod after man's infirmity and 
man's image. 

But, it is objected, a particular providence makes Grod 
the author of evil, physical and moral. The answer is, a 
particular providence no more does so, than a general 
providence does. In both cases there is the same diffi- 
culty, and in both cases the same answer more or less 
satisfactory ; that good has clearly been caused as an end 
to be obtained ; but a degree of evil may have been per- 
mitted, as an occasional and unavoidable means, or result, 
of securing the greater good. 

No proof exists that evil is in any case caused for 
its own sake, while proofs that good is caused for its 
own sake, abound at all times and everywhere. 

Those who, while admitting a general providence, deny 
a particular providence, and refuse to see the hand of 
(rod in the great events of the world and of human life, 
seem, with the greatest respect for them, to contradict 
themselves, and unconsciously to make Grod after man's 
image, while intending to do the very opposite. For, in 
considering the prevision of the Deity, they impute to the 
Supreme Intelligence not only those general and confined 
views of the vast affairs of the universe which alone the 



58 



PROVIDENCE. 



CH. VI, 



human understanding can entertain, but they even attri- 
bute to Him the delusions caused by the use of human 
language. 1 For what is meant by the expression, a 
general providence ? Is it anything more than grouping 1 
together uncertain and confused notions under a general 
term ? 

By those who admit only a general providence, the 
Supreme Intelligence is likened to a clockmaker, who 
puts together and winds up a clock, and then, going 
away, leaves it to mark and strike the hours and run 
down of itself, according to his general intention. But 
justice even to the intelligence and prevision of the clock- 
maker is not done on this supposition. There is no such 
thing as a general intention on his part that the clock 
should perform certain general functions. This word 
general is a mere artifice of language, hiding the poverty 
and uncertainty of our conceptions. Whatever events 
the clockmaker designed, were intended to be particular 
facts, and (so far as his designs have extended and been 
fulfilled) they have been particular facts. What he de- 
signed were these particular events, among many others : 
that the clock should strike the hour at the proper times, 
not only to-day paid to-morrow, but on Sunday, Monday, 
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and the succeeding days. 
How long the clock will continue to do so, or what accident 
may happen to prevent or impede it, he cannot easily 

1 On this profound subject let us hear and ponder the sublime 
language of Bossuet : — 

' Que je meprise ces philosophes qui, niesurant les conseilsde Dieu 
a leurs pensees, ne le font auteur que d'un certain ordre general, d'ou 
le reste se developpe comnie il peut! Coninie s'il avait, a notie 
nianiere, des vues generales et confuses, et comme si la souveraine 
intelligence ne pouvait pas comprendre dans ses desseins, les c/ioscs 
particulieres ; qui seules subsisteat veritablementj 



CH. VI. 



PROVIDENCE. 



59- 



foretell, by reason of his imperfect knowledge, and Ms 
limited foresight. 

But if the clockmaker's knowledge, intellect, previ- 
sion, and power, instead of being limited, were indefinitely 
enlarged, then he might not only foresee and calculate, 
but pre-arrange, not only the particular motion, but the 
wear and tear of every wheel, and foresee and pre-arrange 
the immediate cause, the particular manner, and the pre- 
cise moment of the clock stopping or wearing out. But 
these circumstances and distant contingencies are un- 
known to him, by reason of the imperfection of his facul- 
ties. He can only form some guess at what may probably 
happen, and provide accordingly. 

And is this the human archetype after which men are 
to paint the Supreme Artificer, overlooking the boundless 
knowledge of Him to whom the minutest changes and 
events may be as well known as the greatest, the future 
as well known as the past or the present, and whose pro- 
spective plans no contingency, great or small, can surprise 
or disconcert ? He needs no grouping together of similar 
events under general terms. To Him every particular 
existence and every particular fact may be known ; and 
the steady and uniform course of nature does but bear 
witness to the unfathomable wisdom, that arranged not 
only the whole, but every part. 

It may further be said, and with truth, that a parti- 
cular providence of Grod is necessarily involved in His 
general providence. Can it be that the Omniscient fore- 
sees and designs only some of the consequences of His 
acts? That He who is £ from everlasting to everlasting' 
cannot foresee remote consequences ; that He cannot 
look forward to the remotest duration ; that He cannot 
foresee all particular persons, creatures, things, events,, 



PROVIDENCE. 



CH. VI. 



and actions ? These individual persons, creatures, things, 
events, and actions being indeed the only real existences. 

Moreover, the general sentiments of mankind are, and 
ever have been, in favour of a superintending, overruling, 
and particular Providence. It is of the very essence of 
that religious sentiment which has in all ages pervaded 
nations. Every human creature, especially in seasons of 
helpless misery, clings to it by instinct. In matters so 
far transcending the human understanding, the sugges- 
tions of the heart are an infinitely safer guide than fal- 
lible reason, even should they not point, as it is submitted 
they do point, to the same conclusion. 

Further, if the action of the Deity be restrained to 
a mere general pre-ordination of the course of nature, the 
practical difference between Theism and Atheism is very 
small. 

What! it may be objected, is every event designed, 
down to the death of a fly, or the fall of a leaf? 

Let us here distinguish. It may be that some events 
are specially designed as ends to be accomplished, others 
as means to distant ends, and others again not so much 
designed as foreseen or permitted; some of them as 
indifferent results, others as necessary antecedents or 
consequences, though of themselves not to be desired. 

Then it is objected, Grocl has established general laivs 
by which alone the Universe is governed. 

But the word law, as here used, is no more than a 
figure of speech. All that such expressions amount to, 
when thoroughly sifted and examined, is this : that the 
general course of nature, so far as we can perceive it, is 
in our days uniform and invariable. What such uni- 



CH. VI. 



PROVIDENCE. 



61 



formity really indicates is perfect wisdom in the ordainer, 
but by no means the absence of the pre-ordination of 
particular events. Perfect wisdom may well result in a 
general course of action, uniform and invariable, as im- 
perfect wisdom is betrayed by actions tentative and 
variable. But the more perfect that wisdom, the more 
comprehensive that knowledge, the more capable is it of 
foreseeing and arranging the most minute and distant 
consequences. 

Yet further, to assume that the ordinary course of 
nature never can be, or never has been, changed by the- 
extraordinary interposition of Divine Power, is to assume 
that which is not only without evidence to support it, 
but which is against cogent evidence from natural sources 
to disprove it. 

The history of our planet everywhere presents nume- 
rous and unequivocal marks of extraordinary interpositions 
by a superior power from time to time. Animals, for 
example, of which, apparently, there were, and could be, 
no progenitors, have in the lapse of ages from time to time 
been introduced. Whatever the date of man's creation, 
time was (and with reference to geological periods, very 
recent time) when man was not. We know for certain 
that man and inferior animals were not originally pro- 
duced by the present mode of generation, but by what 
other means they were created we have not the remotest 
conception. All we know is that those means were in the 
hands of Infinite Wisdom, Power, and Goodness, and that 
is enough for us to know. 

And how do we know — what right have we to assume 
— that even at this time there may not occasionally, per- 
haps often, be special and extraordinary interpositions of 



PROVIDENCE. 



CH. VI. 



Divine Providence, though for the most part concealed 
from human knowledge ? Not only may such things 
be, but there is not wanting evidence of their exist- 
ence. How many instances are there of great men whose 
coming greatness has in their clay of obscurity and 
adversity been confidently anticipated by themselves as a 
-certainty ? How many suggestions have darted into 
men's minds, they know not whence, and led to the 
greatest results ? 

Then it is said you destroy the freedom of the will. 
How can it be that God pre-arranges, yet that man's 
will is free ? 

Here it is necessary to clear the question of the ex- 
pression, free will. To say that a man's will is not free, 
is to say that he does not wish as he does wish, that he 
does not prefer what he does prefer ; in a word, that he 
does not will as he does will. 1 

But it may be objected, Is it credible that the 
Almighty will take notice of our mean and insignificant 
affairs, of the conduct of individuals, and of the secrets 
of their hearts ? 

Let us not fear to place this objection in the strongest 
light. 

The ancients in general believed the earth to be a 
plane surface, and the centre of creation ; that the sun, 
and moon, and planets, and stars travelled round it every 
night. 

But astronomy had been cultivated by mathematicians 
for centuries before the Christian era in the pellucid and 

1 See the observations on this subject in Chap. I. 



CK. VI. 



PROVIDENCE. 



03 



"brilliant atmosphere of Egypt. The Egyptian Euclid, 
who flourished three hundred years before the Christian 
era, is to this day the teacher of pure geometry and mathe- 
matics in our own schools and universities. 

Under these circumstances it was impossible that the 
sphericity of the earth, and its revolution with the other 
planets round the sun, with the existence of antipodes, 
should not have been at least suspected not only by the 
Egyptians but by the Grreeks and Eomans. Accordingly 
we find in classical authors plain traces of it before the 
Christian era. 1 

The fathers of the Church, however, among whom 
were St. Augustine and St. Chrysostom, conceiving the 
solar system, as now demonstrated, to be at variance with 
Christianity, as then understood, pronounced it to be 
heretical and false. The melancholy persecution of 
Galileo a thousand years afterwards is but too well 
known. 

Let us now, however, take a brief and popular view of 
what modern science has at length, in spite of all objec- 
tions and of all fears, demonstrated. 

Our earth is but one of several planets revolving at 
various distances round our great central luminary, the 
sun. Not attempting scientific accuracy, it is hoped the 
reader will pardon a rough and imperfect attempt at a 
popular illustration of magnitudes and distances. 

Imagine a sphere large enough to contain within itself 
St. Paul's Cathedral, including its dome, and suppose that 
sphere to represent the sun. Then a ball about four or 
five feet in diameter would represent the comparative 
magnitude of our planet, the earth. Imagine this ball 

1 See Cicero, Sqmnium Scipionis. 



64 



PROVIDENCE. 



CH. VI. 



to revolve round the imaginary sphere containing St. 
Paul's at its actual proportionate distance, which would be 
about eleven or twelve miles. It would in its flight describe 
a circle including the Surrey hills on the south and far 
beyond the Hampstead and Highgate hills on the north, 
and would be too small to be seen from the summit of St. 
Paul's by the naked eye. 

Compare, again, the earth with the superior planets ; 
with Jupiter (who, though a hundred times larger than 
the earth, is yet but an insignificant ball compared to 
the sun); with Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The 
proportional orbits of the most distant of these planets 
revolving round St. Paul's would embrace a portion of 
the continent of Europe on the one side, and of the ocean 
on the other. This popular illustration will suffice, without 
more, to represent roughly the insignificance of the planet,, 
which we inhabit, compared with our great central lumi- 
nary, the sun, and with the rest even of the solar system. 

But other suns innumerable, which we call fixed stars,, 
shine in the heavens, yet so distant from the earth that, 
though light travels at the rate of millions of miles in 
a second of time, light from some of them may take years 
to reach us. 

Nor is this all. Clusters appear, of what has been 
figuratively called £ solar dust,' being probably other suns 
of other systems, at such a distance as to appear too 
minute to be resolved into units even by the most 
powerful instruments. 

There are nebula?, once supposed to represent the 
matter of future systems not yet created, but now sup- 
posed to be crowds of suns, the light from which takes 
centuries of years to reach us. 



CH, VI. 



PROVIDENCE. 



65 



Yet, after all, these innumerable mighty orbs are but 
mere matter. They did not create, place, or move them- 
selves. Who, then, did ? Some creating invisible power 
and wisdom; and no other solution is possible or even 
conceivable. 

Shall even the poor mind of man understand enough 
to weigh and measure heavenly bodies, describe their 
courses, and prophesy with absolute certainty the exact 
spot in the heavens which they will occupy at any given 
day for years and centuries to come ? Did not the Creator 
know all that, which even His creatures know ? 

Such are the discoveries of the telescope. 

Here we see Grod in the immeasurably great, and feel 
tempted to say, Are not. the insignificant creatures and 
affairs of our little planet beneath His notice ? 

But to dissipate any such suspicion, the microscope 
now takes up the wondrous tale. As the telescope has 
shown Grod in the immeasurably great, so the microscope 
reveals His power, His wisdom, His goodness and His care 
in the inconceivably small. 1 

Animated beings, miracles of minuteness, are found 
alive in countless multitudes on the land, in the water, in 
the air, in living bodies, and even in human blood. Yet, 
inconceivably minute as they are, their internal organi- 
zation is in many cases as complicated as that of the 
superior animals, and in some cases still more so. 

So inconceivably minute are they that, as we learn, 

1 We are originally and mainly indebted for the discovery of these 
worlds of minute animalculse to the Prussian naturalist Ehrenberg, 
and afterwards to those who have followed up his researches, and 
in this country especially to Sir John Lubbock. 

F 



66 



PROVIDENCE. 



CH. VI. 



millions of them may be contained in a drop of water or in 
an atom of dust. They are found not on the land alone, 
but in the depths of the ocean ; and not in the depths only, 
but on its surface. Some of them by night, apparently 
phosphorescent, illuminate the surface of the sea like a 
scarlet blazing carpet for many square leagues. 1 Nor is it 
on the surface of the earth alone that these creatures so 
small as to be invisible to the naked eye are to be found 
in countless numbers. The city of Berlin itself is, we are 
told, built on their work and their remains, and so are the 
cliffs of Dover. Nor are they like man, creatures of yester- 
day, but of immeasurable antiquity. The works of organ- 
ized animalculge are found imbedded in flint itself. 

But, it may be said, giving full credit to this wonder- 
ful skill lavished on the creation of these minutest of liv- 
ing creatures, how does that skill bear on the question of 
Divine Providence ? 

We answer, it bears on the question of Divine Provi- 
dence in three ways. First, it shows that nothing is too 
minute for the Eternal Mind to design and construct. 

Next, that there is nothing in the action of the brain 
or mind of man which, by reason of its minuteness and 
apparent insignificance, can elude or escape His notice. 
Then, that from the secret motions of the human brain or 
mind, perhaps of a single individual, proceed the greatest 
events in the history of the human race. 

We would venture to ask this question : Did the 
Almighty and Allwise foresee the greatest event in profane 

1 The Red Sea is conjectured to have derived its name from these 
appearances. And the bleeding bread of which we read more than 
once in ancient history, and which alarmed the soldiers of Alexander 
the Great, is no longer necessarily an incredible fable. 



€H. VI. 



PROVIDENCE. 



(37 



history, which was undoubtedly the establishment of the 
Eoman Empire, or did that great event take Him by sur- 
prise ? 

As the mighty rivers of the earth, like the Plata, 
the Granges, the Mississippi, the St. Lawrence, take 
their rise from insignificant springs or sources, till, re- 
plenished and swollen by their tributary streams, they 
supply the earth and replenish the ocean, so the Eoman 
Empire had its origin in various distant, indirect, and 
apparently insignificant causes. 

If the Allwise did foresee the Eoman Empire, then He 
foresaw the hidden and secret action of the minds that 
successfully contributed to form, and actually did form, 
that great and successful polity. 1 

It may be further objected, how is it that so many 
events bear the appearance of chance — that is to say, of 
causes which themselves have been unforeseen and unde- 
signed ? 

First, many events may have been, though not un- 
foreseen, yet undesigned as ends or objects, being neces- 
sary consequences of other arrangements of supreme utility 
and beuevolence. But these arrangements being to us 
unknown, or very imperfectly apprehended, we are, on a 
superficial view, induced to believe that events take 
place without any prevision or design at all. The more 
ignorant we are, the greater the delusion. And great 
ignorance must necessarily characterize the judgments 

1 Socrates held that the Deity searched the hearts of men and 
knew their secret designs. ^oJicpdr^Q ct, Trcivra /xeu yyeiTO Qsovq 
siokvai, ret -t Xeyofxeva, veil to. irpaTTontva kai fa aiyy fiovXivouiva* -avraxoi* 
<)e irapalvai. — Xenophon, Mcmoralia, II. ii. 

F 2 



(58 



PROVIDENCE. 



CH. VI. 



of every man on these profound and intricate subjects, 
so far transcending human capacity. 

The Omniscient, or perhaps other beings with faculties 
superior to ours, or possibly we ourselves hereafter, may 
see events from a point of view whence much that seemed 
here to be confusion may appear to be really order, and 
some events that look like chance or mishap may appear 
beneficent and wise. 

To the stranger passing by the corner of a grove of 
trees arranged in a quincunx, all the trees seem planted 
in disorder ; yet as he proceeds, one avenue after another 
opens on his view, and when he has scaled a neighbour- 
ing hill and looks down upon the grove, he sees, at one 
glance, the intersecting streets of trees, and perceives that 
what seemed disorder is all order, and that not a tree was 
planted without a reason. Look, again, at a field of 
wheat which has just sprung up after being sown with 
the drill : from every point but one or two it is all con- 
fusion ; but seen from some particular direction, it is all 
order. 

Next it is perhaps not undesigned, but it may be 
well for us that the fact of a providential pre-arrange- 
ment of events should not be too clear and obvious. 
Otherwise men might be induced to relax their efforts, 
under the notion that the predestined end would be sure 
to come, whether the means were used or not. This is no 
fanciful apprehension of what might happen ; for, among 
the Turks, and other Mahometan nations, the prevailing- 
popular fatalism does in fact at this day discourage in- 
dustry and exertion, and does encourage idleness and sen- 
suality. The multitude, imperfectly informed, do not 
perceive that the means are as much pre-ordained as the 



\ 



en. vi. PROVIDENCE. 69 

end, and that where the means are not, the end can never 
"be reached. 

Further, we perhaps narrow our view of the designs 
of Providence in not considering that the virtue as well 
as the happiness, no less of communities than of indi- 
viduals, may form a part of the Divine plan. Where, in 
the Paradise of a Sybarite, would be the virtues of activity, 
industry, justice, beneficence, kindness, patience, fortitude, 
courage, moderation, temperance, self-control, and self- 
denial ? There may be beings different from ourselves to 
whom such a Paradise is adapted ; it may be adapted to 
ourselves hereafter, and reconcilable in both cases with 
virtue and holiness ; but having regard to our present 
moral condition, it would be plainly unsuited and destruc- 
tive to moral excellence or improvement. It would 
corrupt every individual, and involve every community 
in luxury, vice, and ruin. 

We have hitherto been considering the doctrine of 
Divine Providence without reference to the doctrine of a 
Future State. 

We do not, in this part of our subject, assume the cer- 
tainty or even the probability of that future. Still we 
have a right, even at present, to assume its possibility. 
Many difficulties in man's life might be answered if we 
could see the whole of his life now and hereafter ; and, 
at the least, we are not sure that we do see the whole. 
However formidable, therefore, difficulties may appear, we 
never can be sure that they are insoluble. In the mean- 
time, we know enough to clasp to our hearts with unwaver- 
ing faith the Divine administration of all affairs in wisdom, 
power, and mercy. 

For what right have we to conclude, because our poor 



70 



PROVIDENCE. 



CH. VI. 



faculties experience a difficulty in reconciling the doc- 
trines of human liberty and Divine preordination, that 
such a reconciliation is therefore impossible ? On the 
darkest and most mysterious subject to which the puny 
reason of man ever was or can be directed, happy, and at 
least quite as reasonable as others, are they who can say 
and feel — 

Where Eeason fails, 

With all her powers, 
There Faith prevails, 

And Love adores. 



71 



CHAPTEE VII. 

DIVINE W K S H I P. 

In whatever form the Deity is recognized — the fear of 
Him — hope from Him — gratitude to Him — a natural 
instinct — a sense of want — and a feeling of propriety, have 
all joined in suggesting and maintaining acts of inter- 
course with Him called Worship. 

But the benefit of devotional exercises is not for Him : 
it is for ourselves. 

The history of the world demonstrates that religious 
worship, in some form or other, is a human instinct, and 
is among the natural wants of man. Without it there 
is an uncomfortable and restless void, which nothing else 
can fill. With it there is a feeling of satisfaction and 
repose, and the purest pleasure. Addison justly remarks 
that devotion warms and animates the soul even more 
than the delights of sense. There are happily multitudes 
who do not require this to be proved, for they know it 
by personal experience. Many again have seen it shine 
in the devout countenance of others, like the face of the 
ancient Hebrew prophet. It not unfrequently imparts 
an habitual expression of serenity to the countenance. 
Sculptors know well how to represent this heavenly ex- 
pression. We will confine ourselves to one example. 
There is in the Cathedral of Cambray a recumbent statue 
of Fenelon, where the artist has most happily expressed, 
even in the cold marble, the sublimity of devotion which 



72 



DIVINE WORSHIP. 



CH. VII. 



great sculptors and painters have successfully striven to 
represent. 

Forms of religion and of religious worship have ever 
been various, and they are various still ; but religious 
worship itself has ever been universal, and it is universal 
still. 

Consult History : from the earliest time man has wor- 
shipped. Look around you : he everywhere worships still. 
Languages grow and die. Forms of religion which last 
longer than languages grow and die too ; but religious wor- 
ship, though varying in form according to time and place, 
subsists everywhere from age to age, from first to last. 
The wisest of the ancient philosophers were accustomed 
to place the worship of the Deity among the first of human 
duties. 1 Particular forms of worship are temporary acci- 
dents ; but worship itself is evidently part of . human 
nature ; and therefore not to be destroyed or neglected, 
h\ii> to be cultivated and refined by reason. 

Let a man consider his own heart. In seasons of 
doubt, of grief, perplexity, apprehension, responsibility, 
temptation, whither does he naturally fly ? where does 
the good man find such relief from care, such support for 
virtue, as at the Altar ? Man almost everywhere attri- 
butes this relief — this support- — this elevation, to the 
particular form of his worship, because he has never 
experienced it in connection with any other form. The 

1 ' In ipsa communitate sunt gradus officiorum ex quibus quod 
cuique prsestet intelligi possit : nt prima diis immortalibus, secunda 
patriae, tertia parentibus, deinceps gradatim reliquis debeantur.' — 
Cic. Be Off. i. 45. 



ch. vir. 



DIVINE WORSHIP. 



73 



zealous Protestant knows well that he worships 6 in spirit 
and in truth,' but will not believe that the Roman Catho- 
lic does so too. The Eoman Catholic also knows well, 
that his worship also is the effectual and transforming 
worship of the heart, but refuses to admit the efficacy of 
Protestant worship. So strong is the natural conviction 
of the value and necessity of Divine Worship, that it 
sanctifies every form, and has the force of the clearest 
reason. 

Yet forms of devotion, though more or less human, 
are indispensable. Without them even private devotion 
languishes and dies away, and public devotion, from which 
the bulk of the people derive and sustain their religious 
life, exists not. 

What have these forms been ? Diverse. First, sacri- 
fices, offerings, or gifts to the Deity, of animals, fruits, 
flowers. The original gross notion of a sacrifice, is a 
present or a bribe. Sacrifices in this sense will of course 
not bear examination. But as solemn and symbolical 
expressions of gratitude, or invocations of mercy, sacrifices 
doubtless had their efficacy, at least on the minds of the 
suppliants. 

Next, holy places, holy times — the Temples, the Sab- 
baths — separated from profane uses, assisted the mind in 
rising above surrounding objects to sublimer contempla- 
tions. 

Massive and solemn architecture and sacred music 
have in every age dignified edifices dedicated to religious 
worship. The Temples at Luxor, at Jerusalem, at Psestum, 
the Pantheon at Borne, the Cathedral at Toledo, or Amiens, 
Westminster Abbey, the Cathedrals of England, especially 
Durham and Lincoln, though in different styles, were 



74 



DIVINE WORSHIP. 



CH. VII. 



themselves offerings or sacrifices. So is the sanctification 
and the withdrawal of portions of time from secular occu- 
pations by Jews and Christians. 

But in what does the true value of these or any other 
sacrifices consist ? In the kindling and sustentation of 
the religious or devotional sentiment — in other words, in 
their tendency to promote the worship of the heart. 

The same end has been attained by the use of language. 

Poetry was first and chiefly used in the praise and 
invocation of the Deity. But not content with this sub- 
sidiary office, the invention of poets peopled the Temples 
with imaginary gods. The poets, says Lord Bacon, were 
the doctors and fathers of the heathen church. 

But the severe monotheism of Judaism restrained the 
license of religious poetry to the mere expression of devo- 
tional feeling towards one Supreme Being. Christianity 
and Mahometanism, each of them the offspring of Juda- 
ism, have done the same. 1 

1 Travellers in Mahometan countries are much struck with the 
prevalence of prayer. Every evening the Muezzin ascends the lofty 
minaret, and with a loud but musical voice calls to prayer. 

' Hark ! what is that mellow call 
That comes as from the bending sky, 
And o'er the listening city swells, 
Sweeter than e'en our Christian bells, 
And seems upon the earth to fall, 
Like angels' voices from on high ? 
'Tis the Muezzin's monotone, 
That e'er the stooping sun has set 
Is heard from yon tall minaret, 
Breaking out solemn and alone, 
And dying on the quiet air : 
a Lo ! God is great ! to prayer to prayer ! " ' 

The Rev. John Pierpont, Boston, Massachusetts. 



CH. VII. 



DIVINE WORSHIP. 



75 



And language seems the natural and rational expres- 
sion of the religious sentiment. It may be objected that 
che organs of speech were made for addressing man, not 
(rod. But in public worship it is necessary to address 
other men, and language alone can, and does express fully 
to others the sentiments of those who plan or lead the 
worship. Public prayers and audible expressions of de- 
vout adoration are therefore natural and necessary. 1 Ac- 
cordingly they have existed from the earliest times. 

But the mode of worship familiar and necessary in 
public, from that very circumstance naturally introduces 
it in the privacy of the closet : and the feelings of the heart 
in solitude as well as in public spontaneously find vent 
at the lips. Moreover, the mode in which we address 
the only intelligent beings we know, is the one naturally 
adopted in addressing the Deit}^. Here again is a reli- 
gious worship always ready and at hand in solitude : not 
even the carpet of the Mahometan is necessary. The 
solitary Moslem traveller over the sandy and burning 
plains of Africa stops his camel, descends, kneels on his 
bit of carpet, joins his hands in the attitude of prayer, 
and in the profoundest of terrestrial solitudes calls on the 
Great Supreme. In the Mosque of St. Sophia at Con- 
stantinople the acres of the marble floor are periodically 
crowded with kneeling suppliants. 

Besides all this, the clothing of the worshipper's emo- 
tions and aspirations in words makes them steadier, longer,, 
clearer, and deeper. Hence, although audible language, 

1 An appropriate reverential bodily attitude in prayer has not 
been considered a matter of indifference. In the Greek Church 
standing is the attitude of prayer; ' when ye stand praying.' In the 
Latin Church, kneeling. 



76 



DIVINE WORSHIP. 



CH. VIT. 



or even language at all, be not absolutely essential to that 
worship of the heart which is the end of all mere external 
worship, and is itself the only true worship ; yet language 
is its natural accompaniment and expression. What is 
worship in language ? It is the oral and solemn expression 
to the Deity of our religious emotions and our desires. 
The first is in popular language called Praise, the second 
Prayer. 

But under the general term praise, or more properly 
adoration, are comprehended not only expressions adoring 
the Divinity, but confessions of men's dependence, their 
weakness, their sinfulness. The hymns and sacred music 
of every Christian nation are examples, and are among the 
most valuable portions of its sacred literature and art. 

It has been said that the Deity is incapable of being 
flattered with our vain applauses or moved to compassion 
by our petitions. But the answer is that worship is for 
our sake, not for His. 

Prayer in its stricter sense is the reverent and oral 
•expression of our wants and desires to the Divinity. 
Serious objections have been urged against prayer. It is 
said that in expressing our desires and wants to Grod, we 
make God after man's image, and assume to inform Him 
of what He did not know before ; and, moreover, ask the 
Eternal to change His everlasting counsels in obedience 
to our weak and short-sighted requests. 

But we express our desires and wants, not that (rod 
may be informed of them, but that He may be pleased to 
grant them. 

When it is objected that our prayers cannot change 
<rod's designs, the same objection may be made to any 



CH. VII. 



DIVINE WORSHIP. 



means tending towards any end. Whether that end shall 
ever be attained or not, may be in every case ordained 
and settled, but fate or pre- ordination is no practical 
objection to the use of means ; it never was and never 
will be. In Grod's view the means may be ordained as. 
well as the end ; in our view — no means — no end. 

It may, then, be said that the adaptation of other means 
to the attainment of their object is apparent, but that the 
adaptation of prayer to compass its ends is not apparent. 
And this really is all that the objection amounts to. 

But there is an apparent connection at least between 
prayers for the greatest moral good and its attainment. 
Prayer for virtuous dispositions and conduct, for resigna- 
tion, trust, and tranquillity of mind, does certainly tend 
to procure them. The very posture of the mind in prayer 
tends to produce them. 

And who shall affirm that there is no connection be- 
tween prayer and other blessings ? The Power that 
ordained the end may have ordained prayer as the means* 
That we do not see the relation of means and end, is no 
proof that it does not exist. It should be enough for 
men that they feel the natural impulse to pray, and that 
the beneficial consequences of this, as well as other exer- 
cises of religious worship, are abundantly evinced by daily 
experience and observation. 

Besides all this, there is a sort of prayer to which no 
objection can be made. 

Prayer to know the truth and to be preserved from 
seductive and dangerous error ; prayer for practical wis- 
dom and virtue, to be upright, to be sincere, to be guarded 
and kept in the path of integrity and generosity ; a 
prayer to be kind, useful, and good to others, to be able to 
exercise self-control, and, where necessary or proper, to 



73 



DIVINE WORSHIP. 



CH. VII. 



practise self-denial. Prayer, therefore, may well be a 
reasonable service and a duty. 

The theoretical objections which have been made to 
religious worship apply chiefly, if not altogether, to mere 
outward and mechanical devotion. But they lose their 
force entirely when levelled at that worship of the heart, 
which more than anything else elevates, refines, and sanc- 
tifies human nature. 

Public prayers also have ever existed, and still exist, 
all the world over. Unsophisticated man feels that ma- 
jestic temples, adapted to receive kneeling crowds, and 
simple but august ceremonies, are appropriate and suitable 
for public worship. They aid human weakness, they help 
to obscure or eclipse the distractions of the world. The 
Greek and Latin Churches have always and universally 
employed them ; and there is no antagonism between them 
and enlightened Protestantism. In public worship the 
factitious distinctions of the world are broken down — all 
are on a level. Men, women, children, the learned and the 
ignorant, the peer of the realm and the humble domestic 
servant, all worship together. 

Public worship exists everywhere, and is natural and 
necessary everywhere. 

As to its form, it varies with race and climate and 
degree of education. There is no form without objection 
from some quarter or other. In the south of Europe it 
is solemn, splendid, and impassioned ; in the north of 
Europe simple and severe, but in both equally heart- 
felt. 

Wise men in Christian countries usually feel it their 
duty to worship with the multitude, conceiving the sub- 
stance to be material, and not the form. 

Amongst the numerous benefits of public worship is 



•CH. VII. 



DIVINE WORSHIP. 



79 



its efficacy in tranquillizing the mind. But this sooth- 
ing effect is destroyed if one's own speculations, and 
private fancies are then indulged. Mature prompts us 
to worship with the multitude. Besides, most men are 
sensible of the value of a learned, accomplished, en- 
lightened, and independent priesthood, whom it is diffi- 
cult to secure for the service of religion without the aid 
the State. 

Besides the periodical assemblies in the churches, or 
other sacred edifices, almost all men and women publicly 
invoke the solemn sanctions and blessings of religion in 
the three great events of our human existence — birth, 
marriage, and death. And again, in great public appre- 
hensions or calamities, or great occasions for public grati- 
tude (like one that has recently occurred), nature prompts 
us to worship with the multitude. 

Every strong desire, emotion, or taste naturally de- 
velopes and manifests itself in something external and 
palpable. Ambition climbs to high place, or at least 
betrays itself in unwearied outward efforts. Parental 
love feeds, clothes, educates, and provides for its offspring. 
The sense of the beautiful in Art embodies itself in the 
creation, or collection, or at all events the contemplation 
and study, of the works of Art. So the Eeligious senti- 
ment naturally developes itself in outward worship. Wor- 
ship, especially social and public worship, is as it were the 
lens which, gathering the religious light and heat deriv- 
able from different sources, concentrates their united rays 
on the conscience and the heart of man. Our feeble rea- 
son is so distracted that we often fail to heed the Divine 
teachings, whether of external nature or of our own in- 
ternal feeling. In worship, the religious sentiment is, or 



so 



DIVINE WORSHIP. 



CH. VII. 



may be, exhibited clear, unmixed, and intensified, so as to 
act with life-giving and transforming energy. 

The devotional feeling is an emotion natural to man, 
and when cultivated is so strong that it might without 
much impropriety be called a passion. 

It is the refined and elevating substitute for sensual 
pleasure. It may be equally felt by the most instructed 
and the most ignorant. It elevates, it purifies, it re- 
freshes. It has always been the especial and priceless 
treasure of women, the largest and best half of the human 
race, but liable to a far more than equal share of human 
pain and helplessness ; the religious instructresses, more- 
over, of every successive generation. 

Why should the assistance of the fine arts be excluded ? 

Poetry is an art. But all churches and sects, like the 
Jews of old, admit it. The hymns of Watts, Cowper, 
Doddridge, Wesley, Heber, are the treasures equally of 
the Church and of the Dissenters in England. 

Architecture is an art. Who does not feel the solem- 
nity and awe inspired by the sublime Temples of York, 
Durham, Lincoln, or Westminster Abbey ? Why should 
such helps be thrown away, filled as they might be, in- 
tended as they were, and used as they once were, to 
kindle the devotion of vast multitudes ? 

The wind before it woos the harp 

Is "but the wild and timeless air, 
Yet as it passes through the chords 

Changes to music rare. 

Man cannot live alone. He was made for society — 
for large assemblies — for intense emotions of every kind. 
Large assemblies of human beings strangely intensify all 



CH. VII. 



DIVINE WORSHIP. 



81 



the emotions. That worldly-wise but unscrupulous minis- 
ter, the Cardinal De Eetz, was accustomed to say of 
political assemblies of the multitude : Quiconque as- 
semble le peuple Vemeut. The same observation may be 
made as to religious assemblies. The fervour of religious 
emotion is contagious in the Temple, and ascends naturally 
from full hearts to the Great Father of all, who is believed 
— or I ought more properly to say, who is known — to 
be in that house of God (as everywhere else) personally 
present. 

The devotional sentiment, like the other feelings of 
the heart, is exposed to the chilling influences of age. 
The flame of devotion generally burns strongest in youth 
and in early and virtuous manhood, when the sentiments 
as well as the opinions are in course of formation, and is 
apt to sink and flicker as the business and pleasures of 
the world distract, and as life wears away. Care and (if 
we may so speak) art are necessary to tend the altar, and 
to trim and feed the sacred fire. Where it is allowed to 
die out, the best and most ennobling sentiments of human 
nature, its chief riches in its youth and prime, its support 
in age, are lost and thrown away just at the period when 
they are most needed. 

But it has been remarked by eminent physicians that 
it is a vulgar mistake to suppose that the human heart 
always hardens by age. On the contrary, they say it is 
often very much softened, and has become more amiable 
and impressionable. When the race of ambition or com- 
petition has been run, then the tender memories of the 
past revive. The old man cherishes his few remaining 
contemporaries, but his thoughts and his tenderest feelings 
are towards those who are no more in this world, but are, 
as he hopes and believes, 6 gone before ; ' some in honoured 

Gr 



82 



DIVINE WORSHIP. 



CH. VII. 



age, some in the prime of life, and some in artless, inno- 
cent, and affectionate childhood. 

So essential is Divine worship to the happiness and 
virtue of the people at large, high and low, rich and poor, 
that in almost all countries the State has intervened to 
provide, or at least to assist in providing, a proper main- 
tenance for the ministers of religion : for example, in the 
Greek Church, in the Latin Church, in the Church of 
England, in the Church of Scotland, in the Lutheran 
Church ; and even where no such provision is made, 
private beneficence endeavours, though very inefficiently, 
to supply the want. 



83 " 



CHAPTEK VIII. 

THE MORAL LAW. 

Our bodily frame is complex and intricate beyond concep- 
tion. 

The head, the trunk, the limbs, the brain, the nerves, 
the organs of sight, of hearing, of touch, of taste, of 
smell ; the multiform apparatus of digestion, assimilation, 
perspiration ; the ceaseless action of heart and lungs 
circulating and purifying the whole mass of blood every 
few seconds, and that through the long space sometimes 
of nearly a century of years ; all this mechanism, wonder- 
ful and miraculous though it be in every part, is in no 
respect more wonderful than for its inconceivable com- 
plexity. 

Can we suppose it improbable that our mental and 
moral nature, with its perceptions, reason, judgments, 
tastes ; its passions, its love, anger, fear, joy, grief; its 
other and numerous emotions, is less complex ? Philoso- 
phers may have sometimes erred in supposing faculties 
which do not exist ; but a far more common and dange- 
rous error is to overlook or to ignore, in blind submission 
to a theory, faculties which undoubtedly do exist, and by 
this omission to confine the variety of nature to the con- 
tracted limits of our narrow views, our pre-judgments, or 
imperfect understandings. 

G 2 



84 



THE MORAL LAW. 



CH. VIII. 



We have, among other faculties, a faculty which per- 
ceives the true, not only in abstract science, but in the 
complicated affairs of human life. I venture here to call 
it reason ; and we have, among other faculties, a faculty 
which perceives or relishes the beautiful in nature, art, 
and letters : we usually call it taste. 

We have a kindred faculty which instinctively per- 
ceives and approves the noble, the just, or the amiable in 
human actions, and distinguishes it from the mean, the 
base, the odious. This faculty, for want of a better 
appellation, has been metaphorically but not inaptly 
called the moral sense. The expression has been objected 
to, but it is sufficiently precise for our purpose. 1 

1 There are in substance but two opposing theoretical systems of 
morals, as Lord Shaftesbury long ago observed. 

The first system recognizes in human actions a moral quality in- 
dependent of their utility, whether to the agent or to the community, 
and a natural power both in the agent and in the observers, not only 
to discern that moral quality, but to feel it. This power has been not 
inaptly called, though the expression has been objected to, the moral 
sense, and moral feeling. 

The second system founds all morality on the utility of human 
actions. It denies all moral quality in them independent of utility. 
In this second system there may be two theories. 

The first utilitarian theory is founded on utility of actions to the 
agent himself. It makes morality an enlightened selfishness. It 
resolves all duty into prudence. If robbery, fraud, cruelty, or murder 
could be shown to be personally advantageous, they would be on this 
system no crimes. Such a theory without religious sanctions is 
evidently destructive of all morality ; with religious sanctions it is a 
mere sordid calculation of profit and loss. 

The second and more prevalent utilitarian theory, like the first, 
denies all moral qualities in human action, independently of utility. 
But the utility which it regards is not the utility of the individual 
agent, but of the community at large. According to this theory, 
whatever actions tend to benefit mankind at large are good ; what- 
ever actions tend to injure mankind at large are bad. Like the first 



€H. VIII. 



THE MORAL LAW. 



85 



This moral faculty is implied in all the ancient 
popular writers, whether Greek or Koman, whether they 
be historians, poets, philosophers, or orators. It is 
distinctly recognized by the noblest sects of ancient 
philosophy — the Stoics, and the Old and New Academy. 
It is expressly admitted among English writers by Butler, 
Stewart, Browne, Mackintosh, Whewell ; our greatest 
imaginative writers, Shakespeare, Milton, Walter Scott, 
everywhere assume it. It is taught in Germany by Kant 
and the numerous writerss who have followed him. It is 
assumed by the great classical writers of France, Pascal, 
Fenelon, Bossuet, Montesquieu, and even Montaigne and 
Voltaire. 1 

Now, as this sentiment, which we call the moral sense, 
is not to be seen or felt like one of our bodily organs, the 
first question is obviously this : Does it really exist, or is 
it a mere fancy of philosophers or of popular writers, how- 
ever ancient or numerous ? 

utilitarian theory, it denies all moral perception and feeling of the 
moral qualities of actions. 

The first utilitarian theory is pure selfishness. The second does 
not deserve this reproach. But it is inconsistent with itself. Why 
is a man to prefer the general interest of mankind to his own personal 
interest ? No reason can be given but that it is noble and commend- 
able to do so, and base and censurable not to do so. But this is not 
only admitting the existence of moral feelings, it is making them 
motives of action. 

1 No greater contrast can exist than the low estimate of Plato 
formed by Voltaire and the disciples of Bentham on the one hand, 
and by those who are well acquainted with his writings on the 
other. 

In Plato is first found the distinct philosophical expression of the 
moral sentiment, as the foundation-stone of virtue. He says himself, 
that before his time, no writer on the subject had either expressly 
condemned injustice in itself, or praised justice otherwise than for 
the repute, honours, and emoluments arising therefrom. 



86 



THE MORAL LAW. 



en. vim 



In entering on this inquiry we need not embarrass 
ourselves, as that great writer Mr. Locke has done, with 
the threadbare discussion whether there be, or be not, 
innate ideas ; for the moral sentiments, whether they be 
innate or acquired, whether they be original and implanted, 
or whether they be naturally produced by human existence 
in human society, are in either case equally natural 
and real. The apple-tree, when it grows up, will bear 
apples, and the plum-tree plums. The question whether 
the apple or the plum were innate in the seed or in the 
twig when it first raised its head above the soil, is a mere 
speculative or metaphysical question of no practical im- 
portance. To change the illustration : the mind of a 
child may be a blank, but it is inscribed with sympathetic 
ink ; in due course of years, society and the experience 
of life bring out the characters, or, to express the same 
thought in the eloquent language of the late Professor 
Sedgwick, 'this blank has been already touched by a 
celestial hand, and when plunged in the colours which 
surround it, takes not its tinge from accident, but from 
design, and comes out covered with a glorious pattern.' 
The true practical question is this : These fruits in the 
one first case, and these morals in the other, are they in 
substance the genuine products of nature and human 
society, though in form they may be various ? 

We have, therefore, to inquire whether there be not 
moral sentiments which are the universal characteristics 
of human nature. 

The moral sentiments, like other faculties, may be 
weakened, depraved, or distorted. Unfavourable circum- 
stances and a systematically bad education may do this 
partially in individuals or even in nations, and for long 
periods of time. Still many — indeed, most — of the moral 



CH. VIII. 



THE MORAL LAW. 



87 



judgments and feelings survive and are correct. An up- 
right, unselfish, generous action, is still applauded ; mean, 
base, and ungrateful conduct is still despised and hated. 

Present on the stage to any audience, educated or 
ignorant, or to any miscellaneous assemblage whatever, 
the spectacle of a tender, watchful, self-denying mother, 
whose son rewards her unselfish and unwearied efforts for 
his welfare by dashing out her brains in order pre- 
maturely to seize her little savings, painfully spared and 
hoarded by her self-denial for his benefit. Do the spec- 
tators deliberate whether such actions be useful or in- 
jurious to society ? Far from it. Instantly, instinctively, 
passionately, the whole audience, every man, woman, and 
child, without reflecting, but without the least shadow of 
doubt, condemns. In every breast swells up an emotion, 
amounting to a passion of abhorrence and detestation. 
Human language, ever ready with its appropriate epithets, 
stigmatizes such conduct as wrong, wicked, base, abomin- 
able. Exhibit in the next scene a man just and cha- 
ritable, promising to his own hurt and changing not, 
denying himself superfluities that he may help the un- 
fortunate and the miserable ; the whole audience instantly 
and instinctively approve, admire, and applaud. In every 
language the multitude have a name for such a man ; they 
call him the good man. It matters not where or when 
such spectacles are presented, whether to the English in 
the reign of Queen Victoria, to the Greeks in the time of 
Pericles, or to the Egyptians who laboured at the Pyra- 
mids. And it is plain that while human nature remains 
such will ever be the genuine sentiments of mankind. 
Similar illustrations might be presented of the natural 
and universal appreciation of justice, beneficence, kind- 
ness, courage, fortitude, and self-control. 



88 



THE MORAL LAW. 



CH. VIII. 



In all nations the moral sentiments of men have 
existed, and have been substantially the same ever since 
the first human countenance beamed with approbation, or 
the first human lip curled with scorn. Eeligions, man- 
ners, languages, governments, have differed and differ 
still, but the moral sentiments of human nature are as old, 
universal, and unchangeable as the features and linea- 
ments of the human countenance. They are as much 
parcel of human nature as hunger and thirst, love and 
hate. 

No doubt there are partial exceptions. There are men, 
or even tribes of men, whose moral sentiments, feebly and 
imperfectly developed, are as to some particular actions 
mistaken or depraved by bad habits, evil example, or per- 
verse education. But so, also, there are those who are 
born lame, or blind, or deaf and dumb, or even idiots ; 
yet to walk, to see, to hear, to speak, to understand, are 
still the general and ever-recurring attributes of human 
nature. The exceptions are comparatively few and singu- 
lar. They would not destroy the rule were they much 
more numerous. Grood taste in art and letters is still 
good taste, though corrupt and vitiated taste should 
superabound, as indeed it always does. 

It may further be observed that the exceptions to the 
general moral judgments of mankind (to the moral sense, 
as it has often been not inaptly called) are cases where the 
moral judgment is distorted and depraved in part, and not 
altogether, but only as to a particular class of actions. 
Even in such cases most of the moral judgments and 
feelings survive and are correct. A generous action may 
still be appreciated and applauded, and a mean and base 
action still despised and hated. 

Again, there is an invincible tendency to revert to just 



CH. VIII. 



THE MORAL LAW. 



89 



moral perceptions and sentiments even in those particulars 
in which they have been depraved. 

It is further to be remarked that this moral faculty not 
only perceives the good and the bad and discriminates be- 
tween then, but that its exercise is accompanied by an 
emotion. It not only sees, but feels what is right ; it not 
only approves, but admires and loves it. So, on the other 
hand, it not only condemns the bad, but dislikes and hates 
and fears it. 

The spectacle of Eegulus voluntarily returning to 
torture and death rather than violate his duty to his 
country, or his faith plighted to a cruel enemy, has been 
admired and applauded by all succeeding ages. 

So the sentiment attributed to Andrew Fletcher, that 
he would lose his life to serve his country, but would not 
do a base thing to save it, is naturally hailed with accla- 
mation. 

And so it was two thousand years ago. 6 Sunt enim 
qusedam ita fceda, ita flagitiosa, ut ea ne conservandaa 
quidem patriae causa sapiens facturus sit. Hsec igitur 
non suscipiet reipublicse causa, ne respublica quidem pro se 
suscipi volet. 1 

A second peculiarity of what we shall still, for want of a 
better term, venture to call the moral sense or moral law, 
is this : its judgments are naturally regarded with feel- 
ings of awe and/everence. This moral law seems to come 
from a superhuman inspiration ; from nature itself, or, 
more accurately speaking, from an invisible power that is 
behind nature, superior to it and distinct from it — a power 
that may preside not only over our inconsiderable planet, 
our system, and the material worlds, and even systems 



1 Cic. Be Of. i. 46. 



00 



THE MORAL LAW. 



CH. VIII. 



around, but over we know not how many or what unknown 
realities invisible to us, and not cognizable to any of our 
senses. 4 Two things,' says Kant, 4 impress me with awe — 
the starry heavens without, and the moral law within.' 

When a man knows and feels that he has done right,, 
there follows a cheerful, elevating, hopeful feeling. 1 

When a man knows and feels that he has done wrong, 
there follows a degrading, uncomfortable feeling, naturally 
attended with a certain undefmable dread, which last state 
of mind may deepen into the horrible sufferings of re- 
morse, terror, and despair. 

1 ' The sweetness, the chdce of virtue as distinguished from its utile f 
is a thing of instant sensation. It may be decomposed into two in- 
gredients, with one of which conscience has to do — even the pleasure 
we have when any deed or any affection of oars receives from her a 
favourable verdict. 

' But it has another ingredient, i.e. the pleasure we have in the 
mere relish of the affection itself. God has so framed our mental 
economy, that right and wholesome morality should be palatable to 
the taste of the inner man. 

' Virtue is not only seen to be right — it is felt to be delicious. 
There is a heart's-ease or a heart's enjoyment even in the first pur- 
poses of kindness, as well as in its subsequent performances. There 
is a certain rejoicing sense of clearness in the consistency, the exacti- 
tude of justice and truth. There is a triumphant elevation of spirit 
in magnanimity and honour. In perfect harmony with this there is a 
placid feeling of serenity and blissful contentment in gentleness and 
humility. There is a noble satisfaction in those victories which at 
the bidding of principle, or by the power of self-command, may have 
been achieved over the propensities of animal nature. There is an 
elate independence of soul in the consciousness of having nothing to 
hide and nothing to be ashamed of. In a word, by the constitution 
of our nature, each virtue has its appropriate charm, and virtue on 
the whole is a fund of varied as well as perpetual enjoyment to him 
who has imbibed its spirit and is under the guidance of its prin- 
ciples.' — Dr. Chalmers. 



CH. VIII. 



THE MORAL LAW. 



91 



A third peculiarity of the moral sentiment is this,, 
that it is ever accompanied with a sense of obligation. A 
man feels that he ought to do what he deems right, arjcl 
ought not to do what he deems wrong. He cannot 
separate the notions of right and wrong from the obliga- 
tion to do the one, and to refrain from the other. Moral 
teaching, it has been said, is naturally in the imperative 
mood. 4 Thou shalt not steal,' 6 Thou shall do no 
murder.' This obligation is expressed by the words 
ought and ought not, and the word duty, which words 
are incapable of definition, but which or (more accurately 
speaking) the equivalents of which are to be found in all 
languages. 

Another peculiarity of the moral sentiment, perhaps not 
exactly the same as the last, is this : men's moral judg- 
ments include a sense of good or ill desert. When a man 
has done what he thinks or knows to be wrong, he is said 
to deserve, and he feels that he has deserved, punishment.. 
But when a man who has honestly and from pure motives 
acted for the best, and nevertheless has been punished by 
other men for it, all pure and honest minds revolt at the 
injustice. And even where men's notions of right and 
wrong are mistaken or perverted, yet their moral senti- 
ments are not extinguished. 

What a man honestly and innocently believes to be 
right is right to him, and what he innocently believes to 
be wrong is wrong to him. And though he be in error, 
his sense of duty still is and must be his guide. 

An honest man must go by his conscience as he goes 
by his watch. If the watch be right and the man go 
by it, no question arises ; but if it go wrong without 
any fault of his, as if it lose or stop in the night 
when he has no means of correcting it by the sun,. 



92 



THE MORAL LAW. 



CH. VIII. 



and he still goes by it, lie is not to blame. He still does 
what to him may be a duty, though in following a mis- 
taken guide. 

This is the case of all children in a greater or less 
degree. The sense of right and wrong is not created by 
the parent, but its application is directed or in some cases 
misdirected. The parent's conscience must guide the 
child's conscience. 

Disinterestedness is of the essence of all social virtues. 
If a man resolve to be good, or to do a good action, be- 
cause he is to get something by it, or, which is the same 
thing, because virtuous habits will be useful to him, and 
from no other motive whatever, then his goodness is a mere 
sordid calculation. To ask, £ What shall I get by being 
virtuous?' is like asking, 'What shall I get by being clean?' 
6 1 would be virtuous,' it has been well said, c for my own 
sake, though no man should know it, as I would be clean 
for my own sake, though no one should see me.' The 
very nature of virtue is changed if it spring from a cor- 
rupt or even selfish motive. And yet it may happen, and 
does constantly happen, that motives may be mean, or at 
the best mixed, and yet that the man being kept in the 
path of duty by interested fears and hopes, at length dis- 
interested virtue, which is natural to man, springs up and 
becomes habitual. 

The love of goodness, the conviction, or rather and more 
properly speaking, the feeling, that justice, beneficence, 
honesty, truthfulness, self-control, are goods of a different 
kind indeed, yet as real as health, reputation, honour, 
riches, or pleasure, but still good things, and that vice is 
in itself an evil as real as pain, disease, disgrace, or 
poverty, though still an evil of a different kind, is the 



CH. VIII. 



THE MORAL LAW. 



93 



noblest motive to virtuous conduct, and there is reason to 
hope, if not to believe, that it is the most common. 

4 Nature,' says Lord Clarendon, the statesman, lawyer, 
and man of business, with vast and varied experience of 
human life, £ nature does not favour wickedness ; there is 
always fear and apprehension of discovery. Wickedness 
has to oppose a resistance in the nature and mind of man. 

6 Men take degrees in wickedness, and do not come to 
it per solium, 

6 Few men endeavour to cultivate the portion of good- 
ness which nature has given them to improve their under- 
standings, to correct any infirmity they may be subject 
to, to abstain from vice.' 

The multitude do not, in the commonest actions of 
their lives, act from reason, but from feeling or instinct. 
They instinctively admire noble and generous conduct, 
and where temptation to the contrary is removed, they 
naturally imitate it. Great as is the aggregate of vice 
and moral evil among all orders of society, it may, per- 
haps, with truth be affirmed, that on the whole the 
amount of disinterested virtue is greater. The largest 
class of society — the humble poor — are generally helpful 
and kind to one another. The social affections are with 
them, and with all human creatures a perennial spring of 
disinterested virtue. Perhaps, if we look through the 
world, we shall be disposed to believe that more practical 
virtue flows from this source, directly and indirectly, than 
from any other. The disinterested and affectionate father 
and mother — the dutiful and loving son and daughter — 
are everywhere to be seen. Of all these multitudes, vir- 
tuous without knowing it, not one in a thousand stops to 



04 



THE MORAL LAW. 



CH. VIII. 



consider, or indeed is capable of duly estimating, the 
useful or injurious consequences or tendency of actions. 
So far as the bulk of mankind are virtuous, they are vir- 
tuous from instinct, education, religion, or habit; not 
from reason. 

Nevertheless, there have been, and yet are, philosophers 
who contend with Bentham and Paley that actions are 
good or bad simply because those actions are in their 
actual or probable consequences, immediate, remote, or 
collateral, or in their general tendency, useful or injurious 
to mankind. 

But the utilitarian theory not only has little actual 
practical influence on the conduct of mankind, but, even 
when considered as a speculative system, will not bear 
close examination. 

If utility to the individual himself is to be the sole 
test and motive of virtuous conduct, then all virtue is but 
calculating selfishness, more or less refined. Besides, if 
by utility be understood mere material good, apart from 
virtue, then many good actions may not be for a man's 
benefit, and many bad actions may be for his benefit. 
But if virtue be included in the notion of utility, then 
virtue is admitted to be a good to be pursued for its own 
sake. And so, by the utilitarian theory itself, the moral 
sentiment is recognized. 

If utility to mankind at large is to be the test and 
motive, then why is a man to sacrifice his personal interest 
in order to promote the general good ? The only answers 
that can be given are, either that benefit to the individual 
and benefit to the community are always the same (which 
is very often contrary to the plain fact), or else, that a 



€H. VIII. 



THE MORAL LAW. 



9-5 



man should prefer the public good to his own, because 
there is disinterested goodness in doing so, and baseness 
in not doing so. But then disinterested goodness is re- 
cognized as a thing good in itself and a motive of action. 
Thus the utilitarian theory contradicts itself, for it cannot 
divest itself of the moral sentiment. 

Moreover, when we call an action good or evil, we 
plainly imply something more than useful or injurious. 
When we call a man who murders a kind mother ivicked, 
does this epithet merely mean that the action is on the 
whole injurious to the human race in its consequences or 
its tendency ? Certainly it means much more ; it ex- 
presses the instinctive condemnation and abhorrence with 
which murderous ingratitude is beheld, quite irrespec- 
tively of consequences. 

The utilitarian theory of morals is not a mere specula- 
tive error. A poison is imbibed. By ignoring the natu- 
ral distinction between right and wrong, it tends to 
deaden the moral perceptions and feelings, by tempting to 
the invention of particular excuses for moral obliquity, 
though it professes not to proceed on the ground of 
utility in a particular case. 

Yet the utility of actions is not to be disregarded 
in the true theory of morals. To suppose that utility 
solves all the complex phenomena of morals is an error 
on the one side, and an abuse of the principle of utility, 
but to allow the consideration of personal or general 
utility no weight is an error on the other side. The 
utility of actions may even be admitted as a test or 
criterion in many doubtful cases. Still it is an imperfect 
one. Many actions are felt to be laudable and right or 
blameable and wrong, the utility or mischief of which it 
would be hard to demonstrate. Perhaps the best criterion 



00 



THE MORAL LAW. 



CH. VIII. 



of true morality is the compound one — the combination 
of general utility and the general moral sentiment ; both 
these tests being applied by a man of extensive knowledge 
and strong but delicate moral perceptions. And in truth 
such men, sometimes as philosophers, sometimes as poets, 
sometimes as lawgivers, sometimes as historians, have 
in all ages been the moral preceptors of the human race. 1 

But the want of a theoretical test is seldom felt ; so 
strong, so universal, and on the whole so identical, are the 
moral perceptions of mankind, that there is practically very 
little difficulty in distinguishing between right and wrong. 
We all know right from wrong quite well enough for 
practical purposes. It has been for ages a trite and prover- 
bial observation that the difficulty is not to hioiv what is 
right, but to do it. 

Self-control is of the essence of virtue. Without it so 
strong in every man's life are temptations and evil tenden- 
cies that virtuous feelings and motives are too often over- 
borne. Man approves what is right, and does what is 
wrong. 

Virtue engages his assent 
But pleasure wins his heart. 

Man, in order to self-control, wants not so much a guide 
as additional and transcendental motives strong enough to 
vanquish temptation. Like a wayward and giddy child, 
he needs not merely teaching, but the forces of gentle 
compulsion, of discipline, and of habit. 

To all this it may be added that the path of duty is, 
after all, straighter, plainer, and safer than the path of 
mere interest, and conducts to the same end. 

1 Take as illustrations, independently of Christian writers, the 
immortal pages of Homer, Plato, Cicero, Tacitus, and we may add, 
the legal writers cited in the Digest and other portions of the 
Corpus Juris, that majestic monument of the Roman law. 



CH". VIII. 



THE MORAL LAW. 



07 



Experience, however, evinces every day that man needs 
to have the two great moving forces of pleasure and pain 
superadded to the motives on the side of virtue. Munici- 
pal law supplies this lower motive, partly, chough superfi- 
cially, imperfectly and coarsely. Belief in a Divine law, 
sanctioned by a rewarding and avenging Deity, here or 
hereafter, does it internally and more effectually. The con- 
viction that virtue conduces to a man's worldly interest, to 
his reputation and character, is another powerful but 
lower motive. Each of these three motives may well have 
its legitimate influence, and yet deepen and strengthen 
rather than obliterate or weaken the disinterested love of 
goodness. 

And these three motives are all natural and legitimate 
subsidiary motives to virtue. 

The doctrine of the Stoics that virtue alone suffices 
for man's happiness is an exaggeration, and manifestly 
untrue. Happiness consists in the due exercise of the 
human faculties, physical, moral, intellectual, and social. 
These faculties require for their exercise not only virtue 3 
but health, competence, good sense, society, reputation, 
tranquillity, hope. Solid and enduring happiness with- 
out virtue is indeed utterly impossible, but virtue without 
happiness is possible. Virtue is but an indispensable in- 
gredient in the compound which we call happiness. Such 
being the natural condition of man, the desire of virtue 
for this reason, that it not only conduces to health, com- 
petence, wisdom, to the enjoyment of society, to repu- 
tation, tranquillity and hope, but that it is indispensable to 
the enjoyment of these blessings, is a powerful motive, 
efficacious and legitimate. This motive is consistent with 
the disinterested desire of virtue for its own sake, or rather 
with the desire of virtue chiefly for its own sake, according 

H 



98 



THE MORAL LAW. 



CH. VIII. 



to the truer doctrine of the later Academics, 6 virtutem 
rnaxime propter se expetendam.' Experience shows that 
under the protection of subsidiary motives, the disinte- 
rested love of virtue for its own sake not only exists, but 
grows and flourishes. Many are the men who without an 
additional motive might have been unable to withstand 
temptation, but who, being thus protected during the 
early growth of virtue, arrive at the degree of disinte- 
rested goodness, that they would now sacrifice every earthly 
blessing rather than be guilty of a base or unworthy 
action. 

At present we must abstain from insisting religious 
motives, because in so doing we should be taking for 
granted what remains to be proved. 

Practical virtue is the result of art and discipline ope- 
rating on nature. 

It is an old question whether practical virtue is born 
with us, or whether it is to be acquired by art. 

Seneca, representing the Stoical philosophy, says, 
6 Non dat natura virtutem. Ars est bonum fieri.' But 
Quintilian, with that exquisite judgment which dis- 
tinguishes him, puts the case thus : ( Virtus etiamsi quos- 
dam impetus ex natura sumit, tamen perficienda doctrina 
est.' 



99 



CHAPTER IX. 

EYIL. 

Whence comes evil ? How is it that there is so much 
evil, physical and moral ? In other words, why is there 
so much suffering among all sentient creatures, and so 
much wickedness among men ? A question which, as it 
has been often proposed for 3,000 years, and as it has 
met with no satisfactory and complete answer, we may 
class among difficulties which, though partially expli- 
cable, are also by us, with our limited faculties, partially 
insoluble — 

Things which, the invisible King, 
Only Omniscient, hath suppressed in night. — Milton. 

But this thorny question lies not necessarily within 
the sphere of our inquiries ; and even if it did, the failure 
of the greatest minds to answer it should teach modesty 
and diffidence. All that we have to consider is this : is the 
state of things which undeniably exists in respect of evil, 
physical and moral, most consistent with the religious or 
with the atheistical hypothesis ? 

And here it is necessary carefully to distinguish be- 
tween pure evil (which the question, as ordinarily put, 
seems to imply) and a mixture of good and evil. Pure 
evil, without any admixture of good, is not the state of 
things which we have to consider. On the contrary, what 
really exists is evil not only with an admixture of good, 

H 2 



100 



EVIL. 



CH. IX. 



but with a vast preponderance of good. And not only so, 
but ultimate good, in every case where good exists, seems 
to have been the object of design and contrivance ; whereas, 
no single instance can be adduced in which it can be 
demonstrated, or even made probable, that ultimate evil 
was the end designed. A firm conviction of which indu- 
bitable truth (we may remark in passing) is of itself an 
immense good, and a good easily attainable ; for the con- 
soling truth is written in large and legible characters, in 
all ages and in all places, for the benefit of all mankind. 

4 But still,' says the Atheist, 6 how in the mixture do 
you account for the evil ? ' To which the Theist replies : 
6 1 can account for much of the evil, though it may be not 
for all ; but how can you, on your hypothesis, account for 
any portion of the good — for the fact of the amount of 
good immeasurably surpassing the amount of evil, and for 
the further fact that good clearly appears to have been the 
object of design, while evil does not appear to have been 
so?' 

What is the answer of the Atheist ? 

We have already seen that to ascribe evil or good to 
fate or accident is but to ascribe them to unknown and 
unintelligent causes. It is no answer at ail. 

The position of the Atheist, therefore, in relation to 
the mixture of good and evil, is this : he offers no solution 
whatever of the origin of evil ; and is, on his own hypo- 
thesis, encumbered with another difficulty immeasurably 
greater, both in its nature and in its degree, as to the 
origin of good. He cannot explain why good exists at all 
— why it exists in such an overwhelming proportion — 
why it bears on its face such evident marks of design. 
But its existence, its preponderance, and above all its 
designedness, contradict his theory. 



<CH» IX. 



EVIL. 



101 



On the other hand, the believer in Deity and Provi- 
dence, while he humbly admits the insufficiency of his 
Teason to deal with this dark and mysterious question, is, 
in accounting for the alloy of evil, encumbered with a 
difficulty less both in its nature and in its degree. And 
the pressure of even this lighter difficulty is further 
alleviated by more than one consideration. 

First. It may well be that matter is in itself so in- 
tractable as to be incapable of perfection. Imperfection 
may therefore be inevitable. Death, for example, may be 
the necessary corollary of animal and vegetable life. With- 
out death this • globe could not contain either its inha- 
bitants or their food. Pain may be necessarily the usual 
though not the invariable accompaniment of the decay 
and dissolution of animal existence. The nervous system, 
which is to be at once the source of enjoyment and the 
advertisement of danger, cannot fulfil its double office 
unless it sometimes produce pain as well as pleasure. 
Probably such a being as- man is could not have been 
formed of matter other or better than he is. So that to 
ask why Grod allows or causes evil, is to ask why He made 
this world or any other material world, or human crea- 
ture or any other creature. To which question it may 
be a satisfactory answer that thereby, after every deduc- 
tion for the amount of evil, an immense balance of good 
or happiness is conferred on inconceivable multitudes of 
sentient beings. We say inconceivable. For let us cast 
a glance not only on the relative, but on the absolute 
amount of good — even on our planet alone 

All that tread the earth 
Are but a handful to the tribes 
That slumber in its bosom. 



102 



EVIL. 



CH. IX. 



Suppose, in round numbers, the actual human inhabitants, 
of our planet to be about a thousand millions, and assume 
every successive generation of men to have passed away 
in about thirty years. Give what duration you please to 
the planet or to the existence of man upon it, still the 
present human population of the whole globe is but an in- 
considerable and minute fraction of the human creatures 
who have walked upon it. The imagination may be assisted 
by comparing this year's crop of leaves in an ancient forest 
with the aggregate of the leaves that it has borne for 
thousands of previous summers. 

But man himself is a very small fraction of the num- 
ber of sentient creatures. Many of the existing tribes of 
beasts, birds, insects, fishes, greatly surpass him in num- 
bers, as they are themselves immeasurably outnumbered 
by the aggregate of their predecessors ; yet all these crea- 
tures, like himself, can feel pleasure and pain. We may 
go further still, and reflect on the other planets composing 
our system. They should seem to be formed of materials 
very similar to ours ; they certainly are subject to the 
same mechanical laws, and lighted and warmed by the 
same sun. Analogies so strong leave little room to doubt 
that animal life in still greater variety and profusion is 
found among them also. Without indulging in conjec- 
tures not improbable as to other suns and other planets, 
we may well reflect how inconsiderable may be the num- 
bers of sentient existings here to the numbers in other 
regions of creation ; and how inconsiderable the numbers 
now in those distant regions compared to the numbers 
that may have been there during unnumbered ages past. 

Such considerations may assist us in forming some 
conception, however inadequate, of the vast absolute 
amount of good. 



en. ix. 



EVIL. 



103 



Again. How many pains and evils may be necessary 
conditions precedent to enjoyment i Thus hunger and 
thirst create or augment the pleasures of satisfying the 
appetite for food or drink. Hard labour sweetens rest 
and sleep. The struggles and anxieties of poverty en- 
able a man to estimate and enjoy the blessing of com- 
petence ; for nothing beyond that, taking into ac- 
count its emptiness and responsibilities, is any blessing 
at all. 

How many apparent evils in a man's life have resulted 
in the greatest blessings ? 

How many evils are due to our own fault ? 

How many evils are a just punishment of our own 
misdeeds ? 

May not this life be a state of probation ? May there 
not be a future state in which the apparent injustice some- 
times suffered in the present world will be- redressed ? 

We are to remember the utter incompetence of our 
finite faculties to deal with a subject so transcendent and 
so remote from all our experience. 

Hitherto we have spoken of physical evil. Moral 
evil is in the agent ; there is none but what comes from 
man's own fault. For moral evil and men's faults are 
convertible terms. Moral evil in the agent may produce 
physical evil ; but mere physical evil falls under the con- 
siderations already suggested. 

The liability to bodily pain is the great means 
whereby the safety and integrity of all living animals is 
in great measure secured. A man cannot lose, or even 
seriously injure, so much as a finger without exquisite 
pain. Pain is the guardian not only of his legs and arms, 
his hands and feet, but of his eyes and ears, his sight and 
hearing, his ability to touch, or taste, or smell. 



104 



EVIL. 



OH. IX. 



However considerations of this sort may fail to satisfy 
every mind, or even to clear up all difficulties in any mind, 
yet no hypothesis other than the religious hypothesis will 
do more, or do so much. For this, and this only, explains 
the undeniable and immeasurable preponderance of actual 
and designed good. 

One practical caution we need. We should dwell and 
meditate on the proofs of the Divine wisdom and bene- 
volence rather than on the difficulties. The proofs are 
not only incomparably stronger than the difficulties, but 
they are far better adapted to our comprehension. The 
proofs are plain (as no doubt it was designed they should 
be), though there are mysteries insoluble. And, as it has 
many times been observed, it is an intellectual weakness to 
suffer what we do know to be disturbed by what we do 
not know. And it is here, moreover, a moral delin- 
quency, for it is not only a folly but a vice, where the 
proofs lead to hope and tranquillity, but the difficulties to 
uncertainty and despair. 

But let it be granted that the existence of evil is a 
difficulty attending the religious hypothesis, yet we do 
not escape difficulty by flying to the atheistical hypo- 
thesis. On the contrary, we are there met with a diffi- 
culty much clearer and much greater. I mean the vast 
preponderance of good — of good accompanied with the 
clearest evidence that this immense preponderance of 
good was designed. 

We cannot rest in doubt rationally, for one of these 
hypotheses must necessarily be true. Keason, therefore, 
conducts to Deity ; and, accordingly, in all ages and 
nations, mankind have so reasoned. And the conclusion 
of the understanding has been ratified both by the feelings 
of the heart, and the beneficial consequences of the belief. 



Cff. IX. 



EVIL. 



105 



And whatever difficulty may after all remain, it is but 
a difficulty, it is not a disproof. It has been well ob- 
served that a difficulty is one thing, but a disproof is 
another thing. 1 

The proof is everywhere, it is plain, and demonstrative 
of the wisdom and goodness of the Creator. It is not only 
demonstrative, but easily understood, and well adapted to 
our faculties. The difficulty only pretends to be a partial 
difficulty, and we are not to conclude that, because it is 
one which we, with our limited faculties and imperfect 
knowledge, may not be able to solve, therefore it is abso- 
lutely insoluble. 



1 This subject will "be discussed hereafter. 



106 



CHAPTER X. 

DIVINE JUSTICE. 

The profoundest writers on morals in all ages, from Plato> 
Aristotle, and Cicero, Seneca, Epictetns, and the Emperor 
Marcus Aurelius, down to Hutchinson and Butler, main- 
tain that actions are good or bad in themselves, quite 
independently of their advantageous or detrimental conse- 
quences or tendencies, whether to the individual or to 
society. The common sense of mankind ratifies their 
conclusion. The tender, affectionate, self-denying, all- 
enduring, unwearied mother is not only beloved, but 
approved and admired by millions who have never so much 
as wasted a thought on the usefulness of maternal affection. 
The ungrateful son, the treacherous friend, the venal 
judge, the ambitious priest, the corrupt minister, are 
instinctively condemned by all men. 

By Divine Justice is meant the rewarding of virtue 
and the punishment of vice. 

A rough and general outline of Divine Justice is ap- 
parent in the ordinary course of human affairs. The good 
man is generally happy, the bad man almost always 
miserable — nay, to the good man virtue is itself a good, 
and vice itself an evil. Circumstances, it is true, often 
interfere to interrupt or modify the effects of virtue 
and vice. But virtue in itself always produces a certain 



CH. X. 



DIVINE JUSTICE. 



107 



amount of happiness within a man, and tends to produce 
it around him, while vice in itself always produces misery 
within a man, and tends to produce it around him. And 
if we could see what passes within the breasts of men, 
we should probably find the Divine Justice much more 
perfect, even in this life, than on a cursory glance it 
appears. 

But here, again, the inbred and universal sentiments 
of mankind come to oar aid. The human race have in 
all ages regarded the Deity as the avenger of prosperous 
iniquity and the re warder of suffering merit. 

This notion is not only universal, but absolutely 
essential to the very existence of society. fi Take care,' said 
Voltaire, some years before the French Eevolution, c that 
you do not talk atheism before the vulgar. Your concert 
may charm yourselves, but the audience will assuredly 
break your instruments on your own heads.' A prophecy 
very soon afterwards fulfilled to the letter. 

The beauty of virtue and deformity of vice, though 
apparent to unsophisticated nature, awaken sentiments 
of approval or disapproval far too weak and languid to 
control the fierce passions of mankind — their lust and 
rage, their avarice and ambition, or even their enthusiasm 
for a promising novelty. You might as well attempt to 
charm the tempest by the notes of a musical instrument. 
What is society but an aggregation of individuals ? 

A persuasion, therefore, of the Divine Justice as it is 
necessary to the virtue of many men, and conducive to 
the virtue of all men, so it is essential to the very exis- 
tence of society and stable government. Natural senti- 
ment, individual experience, and social necessity, all, 



108 



DIVINE JUSTICE. 



CH. X. 



therefore, teach Divine Justice. The fear and hope of 
Divine Justice should seem, then, to be an instinct sug- 
gested and enforced by the very constitution of our nature. 
Man as an individual, and communities of men, are both so 
framed as that the persuasion of Divine Justice is continu- 
ally suggested, and necessarily kept alive. The ignorant 
and the instructed, the foolish and the wise, are by differ- 
ent means, indeed, but all alike driven and shut up to 
the same conclusion. What the very frame of nature does 
compel, has always compelled, and always will compel 
men to admit, may be said to be taught by a Divine 
instructor. 

But it is objected there are, after all, cases in which 
the good are undeniably miserable, and the bad as clearly 
happy ; and that a justice which admits of these striking 
exceptions is no justice at all. 

And if you were sure you saw in this world the whole 
of human existence, that might be so. But you are not 
sure. The same instinct that has ever persuaded men of 
the Divine Justice also leads them to hope and fear a 
mysterious future. 

The argument, then, stands thus : Divine Justice 
exists to a certain extent ; its existence to a further extent 
is at least possible. 

Nature tells us it does exist to a further extent ; and 
why should it not ? No reason can be given. Is it, then, 
more probable that it does or does not ? 

But it will be said by one class of objectors : Is a doc- 
trine of such supreme importance as this to repose on 
mere probability ? The answer is three-fold. First.— So 
far as the Divine Justice is to be gathered from intuition 



CH. X. 



DIVINE JUSTICE. 



100 



or human instinct, it rests on a foundation distinct from 
probability. Next. — All other bases on which you can 
set it still rest at bottom on probability only as their foun- 
dation. Even Testimony and Miracles themselves rest on 
probability too, or fall to the ground. Lastly. — If you 
could, as in a theorem of Euclid, demonstrate the Divine 
Justice, the very nature of virtue would be changed. It 
would degenerate into a commercial speculation. 

Another class of objectors exclaims : Divine Justice ! 
Sinner by nature and by practice, how can I contemplate 
it without a shudder ? Grod preserve me from being re- 
warded after my deserts. 

But this is not the genuine feeling of the honest heart, 
conscious of the desire and the endeavour to act right ; 
the heart that can appeal to Heaven as to the substantial 
integrity of its ruling motives. The tender mother, the 
affectionate father, the dutiful and loving child, the steady 
friend, instinctively turn to Heaven. Nor is it the feeling 
of the returning prodigal ; but rather of the voluptuous, 
the careless, the covetous, or of those good persons whose 
natural feelings have been tinctured by superstition. 

What sort of justice is Divine ? Surely not a cruel 
vengeance, that shocks and lacerates our best feelings ; 
but a paternal, a merciful, possibly an emendatory one, 
adapted to our imperfect nature. One that makes all just 
allowances, and accepts all sincere repentance. Such an 
one as our nature approves when exhibited by a good man 
to his dependents — by a father to his children. The pla- 
cable and forgiving man is surely the best image we can 
form of the Divine forgiveness. 6 Forgive us our tres- 
passes, as we forgive them that trespass against us.' Shall 
man be more merciful than God ? 

The doctrine of the Divine Justice alone, without for- 



110 



DIVINE JUSTICE. 



CH. X. 



giveness on repentance, is no doubt alarming* rather than 
consoling. It is justice, blended with forgiveness, that 
fits our imperfect nature, and really sustains our weak 
and wavering virtue. This is at bottom the practical 
faith of universal Christendom. 



Ill 



CHAPTEK XL 

FORMS OF WORSHIP. 

It has been objected to free inquiry on religious subjects 
that the bulk of mankind are utterly unfit for it — that the 
conclusions to which it leads even a well-informed man are 
different, and vary from time to time, with his state of 
health or spirits — and that the inquirer never arrives at 
any definite or certain results. That he is perpetually 
invited and tempted to doubt, and to inquire again and 
then to doubt, and to inquire again, and so to live on in 
a perpetual changing and disquieting cycle. 

No doubt the first objection is a reasonable and un- 
answerable objection in the case of the overwhelming 
majority of mankind. They consist chiefly of the un- 
educated and ignorant — of women and children. How is 
a poor washerwoman to inquire and decide? or the 
children that run half naked about the streets ? Is it not 
ridiculous to expect free inquiry by them ? But they, 
like the rest of mankind in all ages, have the religious 
sentiment implanted in their nature, and need as much or 
more than others, its sustaining, consoling, guiding in- 
fluence, and its awful and mysterious sanctions. They 
must necessarily take the form of their religion on 
trust, as they always do, always have done, and always will 
and must do. But they have this advantage, they repose 



112 



FORMS OF WORSHIP. 



CH. XI. 



on authority. They do not pretend to exercise their 
reason. Their simple faith in every Christian land is the 
faith of their country, their church, or their sect : in this 
faith their natural religious sentiment finds support, as- 
sumes a definite character, and enjoys an adequate expres- 
sion in their simple and confiding worship. They are not 
perplexed with doubt : they believe implicitly. The un- 
learned have thus their advantages as well as the learned, 
and Nature on this transcendent subject has made these 
two classes equal. 

How is any man who reposes merely on his own reason 
to avoid distressing doubts and perplexities, and perpetual 
change ? 

Any man who is always anxiously inquiring about 
religious subjects will be in a perpetual state of uncertainty, 
vacillation, inconsistency, and bewilderment ; his faculties 
and spirits will be wasted and exhausted, and all to no 
purpose. The plain and obvious duties of life will be in 
danger of neglect, and if he take refuge in absolute 
scepticism, he still struggles against nature. 

What devotional language is comparable to the beauty 
of many passages in the Psalms : models of devotion more 
than three thousand years old ; and which do not seem to 
have lost, but rather gained, by the magnificent English 
version, whether of the Prayer Book or the Bible ? And 
as they stand in the Vulgate, many of them, besides ex- 
pressing the sentiments of pious Jews of old, have been the 
words of Christian men and women for nearly 1800 years. 

The ancient Christian hymns of the Latin Church, 1 

1 The present Archbishop of Dublin has lately published an 
interesting collection of them. To this most rev. prelate every 
English writer is indebted for Trench on Words. 



CH. XI. 



FORMS OF WORSHIP. 



113 



which have been sung by successive generations all over 
Europe, though not in classical Latin, are many of them, 
not only for their intrinsic merit, but for the associations 
connected with them, intensely interesting and impressive. 

But in addition and infinitely superior to these Latin 
hymns, how rich are the English, and our children the 
Americans, in the sacred poetry of our own mutual 
mother tongue ! Not to mention Milton, a man of pro- 
found learning as well as sublime poetical genius, what 
treasures do not all English-speaking nations possess in 
their devotional poetry and hymns, contributed by all 
churches and sects, and which with unbounded and ever- 
increasing popularity are sung in the United Kingdom,, 
the United States, in the British Colonies, in America, 
Australia, and Africa ? It is not too much to say that 
these English hymns, with their simple melodies, have 
done more than almost anything else to develope the 
religious sentiment in the minds of the young, and to 
revive it in the desolate hearts of the aged. 



I 



114 



CHAPTER XII. * 

DISTINCTION BETWEEN A DIFFICULTY AND A DISPROOF. 

The necessity of observing the distinction between a 
difficulty and a disproof is no new observation. But 
although it has doubtless often been repeated, enforced, 
and exemplified, yet it is too apt to be forgotten or 
neglected. 

Difficulties in natural religion often oppress the im- 
partial and candid inquirer. He says : £ I see plainly 
enough that the Maker of the world is powerful, wise, and 
good, and I see no limits to His power, His wisdom, or 
His benevolence. But how can I reconcile with power, 
wisdom, and goodness, the misery and vice that I behold ? ' 

Even in the ordinary affairs of human life it is ne- 
cessary to discriminate between a difficulty and a disproof. 
Take an instance from judicial investigations. A ques- 
tion, for example, arises whether a plaintiff in an action 
at law was in London or in Edinburgh at or about ten 
o'clock in the morning of a certain day. His family, 
servants, and friends in London all swear, that they saw 
him there that day, and some of them breakfasted with 
him in London that morning, about that hour. Letters are 
produced received by him that morning and answered by 
letters written by himself, dated in London, on that 
morning, and bearing that morning's postmark. 



ch. xii. DIFFICULTY AND DISPROOF. 



115 



On the other side two respectable and unbiassed wit- 
nesses swear, that on that day and about that hour they 
saw him at Edinburgh, conversed with him, knew him well 
before, and from memoranda made by them at the time 
are confident they could not be mistaken. The testimony 
of these witnesses is not shaken by a severe cross-examina- 
tion, to which they are subjected. 

The evidence given by the first witnesses is, however, 
much the strongest, and would no doubt prevail. 

Yet still the evidence of the witnesses on the other 
side is very strong, and cannot be explained. 

This is an example of the sort of difficulty which 
sometimes arises even in ordinary human affairs. The 
difficulty, however, after all, is but a difficulty, and not a 
disproof. 

But in the case of religious difficulty there is not only 
no jury to decide, or to be discharged, but the man who 
is oppressed by the difficulty must decide. It is for him 
not a mere theoretical, but a practical question, for he 
must order his own course of life, and the education of 
his children and household on the religious, or on the 
irreligious hypothesis. 

And being under the obligation of deciding, will he 
not say, 6 1 must decide according to the balance of evi- 
dence? There is a difficulty, I admit, but in deciding 
otherwise, a much greater difficulty would present itself.' 

The proofs of the leading doctrines of religion are 
clear and cogent. I decide for them. Hereafter, or per- 
adventure even here, many difficulties may be removed. 

But a more appropriate illustration may be presented, 
and one, moreover, where a difficulty, once and for ages 

i 2 



116 DIFFICULTY AND DISPROOF. ch. xii. 

■ 

supposed to be insuperable, has been answered and over- 
come. 

The convexity of the earth had been observed from the 
earliest times, and its sphericity accordingly suspected. 
But here came a host of difficulties. 1 

Were trees to grow on the under surface of the globe 
with their roots upwards and their stems, branches, and 
foliage growing downwards ? How were the waters, the 
rivers, the ocean itself, to be prevented from forsaking the 
earth and pouring clown into infinite space ? How could 
there be men walking with their heads downwards ? 

But the principle of gravitation, once suspected and 
at length demonstrated, answered all the difficulties. 

Yet we are not to expect all apparent difficulties in 
the Divine construction of the universe, and administra- 
tion of its vast and various affairs, to be so completely 
solved. 

We are not to be surprised if some difficulties yet 
remain. But we are not to call them disproofs, in the 
face of such overwhelming affirmative evidence. 

1 See Cicero, Somnium Scipionis. 



117 



CHAPTER XIII. 

STATE OF THE CIVILIZED WORLD WHEN CHRISTIANITY 
APPEARED. 

Christianity did nob make its first appearance in a bar- 
barous age, but in the most instructed and enlightened 
age that the world had ever before seen, and perhaps in 
many respects has since seen. The Eoman Empire then 
comprehended nearly the whole of Europe, a large portion 
of Asia ; it included Egypt and the North of Africa. Its 
military power was unexampled, enormous, ubiquitous, 
irresistible, and unresisted. 

Grreek philosophy, with its various sects — the Stoics, the 
Epicureans, the Sceptics, the Old and the New Academy 
— was understood and taught among the educated classes. 
The fine arts, with poetry and literature, derived as they 
were from Greece, had attained a degree of excellence 
never equalled since. The Grreek language, the most 
perfect and beautiful instrument of thought and expression 
that has ever existed among men, was the language of 
philosophy, and of the upper classes of society, not only 
in Rome itself, but throughout the larger portion of the 
Roman Empire — that is to say, of the civilized world. 

But the Epicurean philosophy — which taught that 
pleasure was the chief good, and the only rational pursuit 
of man ; that there was no hereafter, but that man died 



118 



STATE OF THE CIVILIZED WORLD 



en. xm. 



like the dog — had become the prevailing persuasion of the 
•upper and educated classes. 

The multitude, indeed, did not accept the atheistical 
doctrine. Human nature rebelled, yet the multitude were 
but too ready to follow the vicious examples set by men 
their superiors in station. The natural, invariable, and 
inevitable consequence followed — the triumph of vice, 
dissolution of manners, political convulsion, and the 
decay of the Empire. 

There was, indeed, a smaller sect of philosophers, the 
Stoics, who taught that vice was of itself an evil, and the 
greatest of evils ; and virtue a good, and the greatest of 
good ; that power and wealth and sensual pleasure were 
inferior objects of pursuit. Stoicism, like all other 
philosophies and doctrines, had been pushed to extrava- 
gance. But even before Christianity appeared the para- 
doxes of Cato and Tubero had been corrected by the 
writings of Cicero and Seneca. 

Yet with all this Stoicism was cold and lifeless. 

It did not spread among the great masses of mankind. 

It did not reach the hearts of women, who are the first, 
the most effectual, and the best instructors of man. 

Where at this day are the first lessons of religion and 
goodness taught in England, and in every other Christian 
land ? Undoubtedly, as we have already observed, at the 
mother's knee. The pure, the gentle Christian mother 
forms the good man, and in so doing not unfrequently 
forms the great man too. 

The purity and virtue of woman is the safeguard of 
nations ; but the vices and debauchery of the Eoman 
Empire at this period not only corrupted the purity of 



en. xiii. WHEN CHRISTIANITY APPEARED. 119 



women, but by the ease with which divorces were obtained 
had changed and lowered their status in society. 

Still worse was the condition of the vast population of 
slaves. Philosophy had, indeed, protested against it ; but 
philosophy had failed; laws and edicts had been passed with 
a view to ameliorate the servile condition, but they were 
ineffectual. 

The half-naked slaves waited at table. Their lives 
were in their master's hand. An involuntary cough or 
sneeze was punishable with death or with torture. A 
guest, we are told, happened once to say that he had 
never seen a man killed, and the courteous host gratified 
his curiosity by killing a slave in his presence. 

Then came the Christian Eeligion, teaching the 
natural equality of man, that all men are brethren ; 
introducing the golden rule to do to others as we would 
they should do to us ; prohibiting revenge, a lesson of 
which Pagan philosophy had never dreamed ; but without 
which, all private and national injuries are immortal, for 
they beget on both sides an endless progeny of mutually 
retaliating miseries, and murders on a gigantic scale. 

A fearful example is at this day before our eyes. The 
French nation has been unfortunate in a war in which it 
was itself the aggressor, and the loud and popular cry 
already is vengeance, vengeance. If vengeance be taken, 
then the other side may cry for vengeance in return. 
The Christian precept, not to return evil for evil, is based 
on a profound philosophy theretofore unknown. 

6 Philosophy,' says M. Troplong, e made its entry into 
the Roman Law. It broke through the inflexible circle 
traced by the Patriciate. 1 

1 Here the author owes no apology to the reader for quoting in 

i 



120 



STATE OF THE CIVILIZED WORLD en. xin. 



e The philosophical age has begun. Its initial point is 
in the age of Cicero. We shall see it gradually growing, 
especially under the auspices of Stoicism. But we shall 
prove that Stoicism was far from having done all, and that 
from Nero to Constantine the civil law underwent the 
indirect influence of Christianity, by which all things 
were impressed.' 

c The epoch of Cicero was that of a great intellectual 
movement. The Greek philosophy had made an irruption 
into Eome, and the lessons of rhetoricians, so dreaded by 
the friends of antique customs, had introduced youth to 
the most daring novelties. Epicurus had found in the 
Senate, at the bar, among orators and poets, infatuated 
disciples. His doctrines pushed to an extreme, by some 
minds inflexibly logical (for Eome had such), had shaken 
faith in religion, in institutions, in ancestors. In vain 
did Stoicism oppose to the voluptuous indifference of 
Sceptics its austere maxims, its elevated principles, the 
last rampart of the tottering republic, the last refuge of 
great and discouraged souls. But Stoicism itself was but 
an element of opposition added to the opposition which was 
everywhere. In struggling against the political constitu- 
tion which was substituted for the ancient Eoman constitu- 
tion, it exalted the liberty of man and urged, among the 
means of resistance, recourse to the fatal extremity of 
suicide ; it taught man to disengage himself from earthly 
ties by overleaping the limits of the finite. The Stoical 
philosophy, moreover, inclined towards a spiritual world : 
a doctrine so consolatory and so necessary, especially in 
great political calamities, but also a doctrine which con- 
trasted strongly with the superstition of material forms, on 

English some of the observations of M. Troplong, the late venerable 
President of the Court of Cassation, and head of the French judiciary. 



<3H. xiir. WHEN CHRISTIANITY APPEARED. 



121 



which reposed the whole religious and political edifice of 
the State. When the Stoic denied pain on his bed of 
suffering, what more ardent denial of sensualism, what 
prouder protestation of mind against matter ? ' 

6 Between these two sects were placed a numerous class 
of thinkers whom we would call Eclectics, did we not fear 
to commit an anachronism in the expression, and of whom 
Cicero was the most eloquent, and the most illustrious 
representative. A sympathy, which breaks out every- 
where, attached him to the philosophy of Plato, with whom 
he loved to rise on the wings of reason, towards the sub- 
lime regions of ideas and abstract thought. But he 
tempered his brilliant dreams, sometimes by the more ex- 
perimental method of Aristotle, and sometimes by the doc- 
trines of the Portico, more positive and more austere. It 
was in this state of mind that he composed his admirable 
treatise " De Officiis," a book so wise and beautiful 1 that it 
can only be surpassed by the Grospel, and his treatises 
" De Divinatione," and " De Xatura Deorum," master- 
pieces of a philosophy so pure, that they deserved the 
honour of being burnt by the orders of Diocletian with 
the books of Christian piety.' 

'But,' adds the learned judge, 'we must not be de- 
ceived : the Stoicism of Seneca, of Marcus Aurelius, and of 
Epictetus has no longer the narrow and thorny propor- 
tions which make us smile with Cicero at the paradoxes 
of Cato and Tubero. It has risen to forms purer and more 
beautiful. Less intolerant, less harsh, it has more dis- 
tinctly disengaged itself from the superstitions with which 

1 The most eminent of English advocates, Sir James Scarlett, 
used to say that it should be read through every year. 



122 



STATE OF THE CIVILIZED WORLD ch. xm. 



reason reproached it, at the time of its first conquests in 
Eome. It is more and more a spiritual philosophy, which 
proclaims the government of Divine Providence, the 
brotherhood of all mankind, the power of natural equity.' 
... 4 All that there was of civilizing principles dissemi- 
nated among the various philosophical schools, Christianity 
possessed with more richness, and above all, with the ad- 
vantage of a homogeneous system, where all the great 
truths were co-ordinated with an admirable entirety, and 
placed under the safeguard of an ardent faith. But be- 
sides, from that earthen vessel which (as St. Paul expresses 
it) contained the treasure of Jesus Christ, proceeded no- 
tions of morality, which went forth to find the masses 
wearied with philosophy, and revealed to them the true 
destiny of humanity, on earth, and after this life.' 

6 Christianity was really not only a progress in the truths 
received before its time, which it enlarged, completed, 
and clothed with a character more sublime, and a strength 
more sympathetic, but it was, moreover (and this is lite- 
rally true even for the most incredulous), the descent of a 
Spirit from on high on the classes disinherited by science, 
and plunged in the darkness of polytheism. Ancient 
philosophy, with all its merits, was chargeable with the 
unpardonable wrong of remaining cold in the presence of 
the evils of humanity. Confined within the domain of 
speculation for the advantage of a chosen few, it was an 
occupation, or an amusement of the understanding ; never 
an energetic and courageous enterprise to reform society 
at large, and to rescue it from its habits of corruption and 
inhumanity.' 

c This was because it was without the virtue which 
Christianity especially inspired — charity. It did not 



en. xiii. WHEN CHRISTIANITY APPEARED. 



123 



know how to embrace charity, either in its practical 
development, or in its logical extent. I freely admit that 
human fraternity was not unknown to the great Plato ; but 
prejudices, more powerful than philosophy, restricted his 
notion of it to the population of Greece alone. Beyond 
them, he saw nothing but inequalities, antipathies, and the 
right of the strongest.' 

6 Cicero, no doubt, rose very high, when in the midst 
of surrounding Eoman egotism he represented mankind, 
as citizens of the same city. But this municipal connec- 
tion inferred by the philosopher from the identity of laws, 
is but a timid glimpse in comparison with the bond of 
fraternity which unites all men in the Christian city.' 

c Seneca had taken a step further than Cicero in trans- 
forming this common country into a single family of 
which we are all members. But already Christianity had 
surpassed him ; for it had proclaimed not only relationship 
among men, but even fraternity and joint responsibility. 
On this basis, it had founded its affectionate morality of 
charity, of equality, and its indefatigable practice of self- 
denial, of self-sacrifice, and disinterested assistance to 
others. Thus while philosophy uttered in the intellec- 
tual summits of society the fragmentary rudiments of 
Christian perfection, Christianity brought to the nations 
those principles completely developed and ready for im- 
mediate application in all ranks of society. Nothing 
but its active courage would have enabled it to announce 
itself as a new wisdom, distinct from Pagan philosophy. 
Putting aside theological discussion, which is not my 
subject, I will shortly sum up the ideas of natural right 
which the Christian apostle popularized.' 



124 



STATE OF THE CIVILIZED WORLD ch. xiit. 



6 The earth,' says the learned judge, 6 is inhabited by one 
great family of brethren, children of the same Grod, and 
ruled by the same moral law, from Jerusalem to the con- 
fines of Spain : the walls of separation are broken down, 
the enmities which have divided mankind ought to die 
out ; cosmopolitism, which is the love of humanity on 
the grandest scale, succeeds to the mutual hatreds of 
cities, for Christianity accords no preference to Greeks, 
jior to barbarians, to the learned nor to the simple, to 
Jews nor to Gentiles. This new law, which comes to 
rejuvenize humanity, does not aim at overturning the 
authority of established powers. It is true that it re- 
cognizes among the weak and the oppressed rights which 
the great ought to respect. To masters it prescribes 
gentleness and equity towards their servants, to fathers 
it says that they are not to irritate their children. It does 
not excite the slave against his master, the son against 
his father, the wife against her husband. It positively 
prescribes that princes and magistrates are to be obeyed. 

6 But the yoke from which it delivered mankind with- 
out delay, and without sparing, was that of matter and 
the senses, in order to render to spirituality its Divine 
superiority. What were the fruits of materialism ? 
Dissoluteness, idolatry, hatreds, murders. Did not 
Eoman society offer the painful spectacle of this corrup- 
tion ? What, on the contrary, are the fruits of the Spirit ? 
Charity, peace, patience, humanity, goodness, chastity. 
That the spirit does not die, that it is the substitute of 
the flesh ; that it is also the substitute for the letter 
of the law, for the new law is spiritual. It lives by its 
truth and not by forms, and is no longer that law loaded 
with so many precepts and ordinances in which the Spirit 
is at war with the letter.' 



en. xiii. WHEN CHRISTIANITY APPEARED. 



125 



6 The new law,' adds M. Troplong, 6 teaches men to he 
united by a community of affection, to entertain between 
themselves a fraternal tenderness, to regard themselves as 
members, one of another, to aid each other with a sincere 
charity, not to render evil for evil, but to love one's neigh- 
bour as one's self, and to understand, that when one suffers, 
all suffer with him. In the presence of Grod all men are 
affirmed to be equal, all to form but one body ; Jews, 
Gentiles, slaves, all are free or called to a state of liberty, 
for Providence is equal to all, and the earth belongs to 
the Lord, with all that it contains. Lastly, if truth 
must be persecuted, that the Christian does not take 
refuge in a voluntary death like the Stoic, but that he 
suffers, blessing his persecutors, that he resists and stands 
firm, and arms himself like an intrepid warrior with the 
buckler of faith, with the helmet of salvation, and the 
sword of the spirit.' 

6 Such,' adds the learned judge, 4 such was the morality 
which placed itself in the face of a society bristling with 
haughty inequalities, abandoned by religious beliefs, but 
subjugated by laws of iron which, however, did not pre- 
vent doubt and corruption, from insinuating themselves 
everywhere. 

6 There were, nevertheless, still living forces in that 
society, but they were discouraged or oppressed. Stoicism, 
the only depository of purer doctrines, came forth from 
time to time to exhibit characters energetically drawn. 
Most of the generous spirits met together in it as in a 
citadel raised against the decadence of men and things. 
Those whom disgust at public affairs drove from the 
Senate, endeavoured there to fortify themselves by the 
study of wisdom. Those whom their vocation called to 



126 STATE OF THE CIVILIZED WORLD gh. xni. 



the dangerous exercise of public functions learned there- 
by to be better than the laws and manners of their age, 
and drew from their studies the means of improving them- 
selves. Doubtless Stoicism had also its unworthy and 
false apostles. Doubtless the Epicurean doctrines did not 
produce in all minds their final and fatal consequences. 
But I signalize general tendencies, and those of Stoicism 
were as progressive at the epoch with which I am now 
dealing as those of sensualism were adapted to hasten 
the decline of civilization.' 

'When Christianity began to advance on the West, 
Seneca was, in philosophy, the most illustrious represen- 
tative of Stoicism. I have nothing to say about the pre- 
ceptor of Nero. I only see his writings, behind which I 
do not seek to discover the weaknesses of a courtier. 
Now those writings are admirable, and their influence on 
the ulterior destinies of the Stoical philosophy has been 
great. They mark, especially, a considerable progress above 
the works in which Cicero had treated the same subjects.' 

£ Seneca was about sixty years of age when St. Paul 
(having ventured to appeal to the Emperor from the juris- 
diction of Porcius Festus) brought to Eome his philosophy, 
so eminently spiritual. We know that the great apostle, 
whose language had shaken Agrippa, Berenice, and the 
Proconsul Sergius, preached freely in that city for two 
whole years, and there underwent a prosecution in which 
he defended himself. Can it be supposed that the 
novelty of this teaching, and the rumour of this prose- 
cution were unknown to Seneca, whose mind was inces- 
santly feeding on the greatest philosophical and social 
questions ? Besides, Seneca must have known Paul by 
reputation even before Paul's journey to the capital of 
the Koman Empire ; for Gallio, Seneca's elder brother, 



<jh. xiii. WHEN CHRISTIANITY APPEARED. 



127 



had during his proconsulate of Achaia found himself 
perplexed by the quarrels of the Jews at Corinth with 
St. Paul, it being before his tribunal that the enemies 
of the apostle had prosecuted him as guilty of novel 
superstitions ; and Gallio, without even desiring to hear 
his defence, had sent him away acquitted, with a mode- 
ration and spirit of tolerance, that justify the eulogies for 
wisdom which Seneca is fond of bestowing on Grallio. 
Now, the intimacy between the two brothers was very 
great : it was to Grallio that Seneca dedicated his treatises 
on " Anger 5 ' and on " A Happy Life," and he often speaks 
of him in his other works with the most lively testi- 
monies of affection and consideration. How, then, can it 
be supposed that Grallio would have allowed him to be 
ignorant of this remarkable incident in his own adminis- 
tration, 1 especially when suspicious minds already con- 
nected with the preaching of St. Paul some attempts at 
insurrection that had broken out in the East? And 
further, it is certain that Christianity at its aurora had 
shot its rays even to Eome, and anticipated the arrival of 
St. Paul. In fact, he, in his Epistle to the Eomans, 

• salutes a number of Christians by name, and commends 
them for their faith, already known throughout the world ; 

- finally, at his disembarkment at Pozzuoli, and on the road 
between that city and Eome, several brethren came to 
receive him. During his sojourn at Eome St. Paul did 
not cease to write, to hold conferences, and to convert. 
His utterances penetrated even to the abode of the 
Emperor, and found there believers and brethren. Thus, 

1 But it is at least as probable that St. Paul, who resided so 
long in Eome, was acquainted with the opinions, if not with the 
Latin writings, of Seneca, then the most eminent philosophical writer 
in the metropolis of the world. 



128 



STATE OF THE CIVILIZED WORLD ch. xni. 



then, evangelical truth had taken root in the capital of 
the world : there it was by the side of Seneca raising its 
serene face above the calumnies which preceded the per- 
secutions, those punishments of refined atrocity which 
were also the means of making Christianity known and of 
calling to it interest and sympathy.' 

'For any man who has read Seneca with attention, 
there is in his philosophy, in his style, a reflection of 
Christian ideas, which colours his compositions with a 
light entirely new. Seneca composed a noble book on 
Providence, which, in the time of Cicero, had not even 
a name in Eome. He speaks of Grod in the language of a 
Christian, for he not only calls Him 44 our Father," but he 
desires, as in the Lord's Prayer, that 66 His will be done." 
He teaches that God should be honoured and loved. He 
sees among men a natural relationship, which comes very 
near to the universal brotherhood of the disciples of 
Christ. With what ardent philanthrophy does he claim 
the rights of humanity for the slave, born from the same 
origin as ourselves, enslaved in the body, but free in the 
mind ! Are they not the words of St. Paul ? ' 

4 1 say, then, 5 observes the learned judge, 4 that Christ- 
ianity had enveloped Seneca in its atmosphere, that it 
had enlarged in him the reach of Stoical ideas, and that 
through that powerful writer it had glided secretly into 
the philosophy of the Portico, and had modified and 
purified, without its knowledge and perhaps against its 
will, its spirit, and its language.' 

4 Epictetus was not a Christian, says M. Villemain, but 
the impress of Christianity was already in the world. 
Marcus Aurelius, who persecuted the Christians, was more 
of a Christian in his noble meditations than he imagined. 
The jurisconsult Ulpian, who caused the Christians to be 



ch. xiii. WHEN CHRISTIANITY APPEARED. 129 



crucified, spoke their language while thinking that he 
spoke the language of Stoicism in many of his philoso- 
phical maxims.' 

( Two hundred years had not elapsed after the death of 
Christ when His religion appeared to Pagan society to 
contain the purest maxims of wisdom. And yet it is 
while history gives us so many authentic testimonies of 
its progress in every sense, that men hesitate to recognize 
its action in improving philosophy. Eeason is repugnant 
to admit that Christianity and philosophy marched in a 
parallel line. Christianity is the magnificent epitome 
of all the ancient systems of morality and philosophy 
disengaged from their errors, and brought back to 
principles more elevated and more complete. It is the 
point of junction between all the partial truths of the 
Eastern and Western world, which become mixed in a 
truth purer, clearer, vaster; it is the final progress by 
which mankind is put in possession of the principles of 
true and universal civilization. Christianity must there- 
fore necessarily find affinities and sympathies pre-existing. 
Here the Platonism of Alexandria might sometimes 
recognize and admire itself in St. John the Evangelist : 
there the Stoicism of Eome found its cherished maxims 
in the eloquent epistles of St. Paul, and also in the 
contempt of Christians for pain, in their courage amidst 
their sufferings. On all sides Christianity had minds 
prepared for it. Foundation-stones appeared to have 
been laid on which to place the basis of its power.' 

4 Christianity,' adds the learned judge, 6 is not only the 
perfecting of the Law of Moses and of that Hebrew wis- 
dom confined within the jealous limits of a little country 
in the East ; besides all this it is the magnificent sum- 
mary of all the ancient systems of morals and philosophy 



130 STATE OF THE CIVILIZED WORLD, ETC. ch. xiii. 



disengaged from their errors, and restored to principles 
more elevated and more complete ; it is the point of junc- 
tion for all the partial truths of the Eastern and Western 
world, which thus mix themselves in a truth purer, clearer, 
more extensive ; it is the final progress, whereby humanity 
has been put in possession of the principles of true and 
universal civilization. Christianity therefore found every- 
where pre-existing affinities and sympathies. 

£ Judicial equity now demanded her share of influence, 
not as a queen who would depose an usurper, but as a 
companion who conceals under an outward timidity her 
views of domination. Jurists prefer to describe her as 
a supplement to law which has not foreseen every con- 
tingency.' 

The force of these observations by M. Troplong will 
be best appreciated by those who reflect on what he had 
seen, and seen repeated, over and over again, in France 
during the present century. 



131 



CHAPTEE XIY. 

INSTINCT. 

Instinct has been variously defined, but perhaps it is best 
described as a natural impulse or propensity existing in 
animals, before any experience or any instruction, and 
without any further end in view than obedience to the 
instinct itself. 1 

That there are certain instincts in human creatures is 
certain. 

But instincts are more numerous and more obvious in 
the lower animals, in whom they supply the want of 
reason, instruction, and experience. 

Animals without the least experience, knowledge, or 

1 Dr. Carpenter, in his late able and interesting treatise on Mental 
Physiology, says that ' the designation of instinct is now properly re- 
stricted to actions, which being performed without any guidance from 
experience, and executed in precisely the same manner by all the in- 
dividuals of a species, must be regarded as proceeding from an innate 
and constitutional tendency corresponding with that which prompts 
our own primarily automatic movements. 

He says the most remarkable examples of instinctive action that 
the entire animal kingdom can furnish are presented in the operations 
of bees, wasps, ants, and other social insects who construct habitations 
for themselves, upon a plan which the most enlightened human intelli- 
gence, working according to the most refined geometrical principles, 
could not surpass, but yet do so without education communicated by 
their parents, or progressive attempts of their own, and with no trace 
of hesitation, confusion, or interruption. 

k 2 



132 



INSTINCT. 



en. xiv. 



appearance of wisdom are guided by their instincts in 
the most important actions of their lives. Instincts 
among the inferior animals have these advantages over 
reason, that they are uniform and unvarying among the 
several species ; and that they are not tentative, but are 
infallibly effectual in their operation. 

The apt and popular illustrations of the nature and 
peculiar characters of instincts are therefore usually and 
properly drawn from the habits of inferior animals, 
especially of bees, ants, and birds. Among birds the 
hen for the first time in her life is taught by her instinct, 
or, if you please, by her nature, to choose a suitable and 
retired spot to deposit something, she does not know what. 
She makes the place of her intended retirement safe and 
warm and comfortable. There she deposits her eggs. 
There she broods till the young are hatched ; the male, 
meanwhile, instinctively supplying her with food. Then 
she herself, when her young are hatched, assiduously 
gathers and carries home to her young ones their food, 
in which service she is assisted by the male bird, till their 
progeny are able to fly and take care of themselves. The 
extent of this instinct will be seen when we consider the 
immense and various multitude of birds. In this king- 
dom alone a late statute, the Birds Protection Act, 
enumerates no fewer than seventy-nine species. 

But the numbers and kinds in Great Britain are but a 
minute fraction of the birds in other quarters of the globe. 
And further, besides all the land birds, there are sea birds 
in every ocean throughout the globe in every variety and 
in numbers unknown and incalculable. 

There are instincts in the human creature, and one of 
them is the religious instinct. This instinct, though in 



CH. XIV. 



INSTINCT. 



133 



different forms, lias at all times and everywhere presented 
itself. The history of the whole human race, in all places 
and at all periods, demonstrates that belief in the existence 
of Deity, in some shape or other, is part of human nature ; 
so is belief in Divine Providence, so also is the expectation 
of a future life, and so too is the propensity to Divine 
worship. 

In vain have a few ingenious men and philosophers 
maintained the negative. Human instinct has every- 
where, and at all times, been too strong for them. The 
weaker you make the positive evidence in favour of 
religious doctrines and practices, the more you show 
them to be part of man's nature. But, in fact, human 
reason and human instinct coincide in their teachings. 
Both teach religion. 

The wisest and greatest of mankind have not unfre- 
quently bowed the head not only in reverent acquiescence, 
but in earnest hope and belief. 

And some others who have felt themselves unable to 
do so have expressed their deep sorrow and regret at their 
inability. 

The multitude instinctively need a teaching and a 
worship authoritative, definite, and positive. Their virtue 
is mainly dependent upon it, and so is their happiness. 
They crave to live and die in the faith of their fathers. 
They nourish the hope of rejoining the dear ones, who have 
descended into the dark valley before them. They in- 
stinctively cling to the doctrine of Divine Providence, and 
naturally shudder at the notion, that they are the mere 
playthings of accident, or the victims of blind and relent- 
less fate. 



134 



CHAPTER XV. 

INEFFICACY OF MERE NATURAL RELIGION. 

All history evinces that not only is the religious instinct 
part of human nature, but that some definite and positive 
system of religion, and of public religious worship is indis- 
pensable to the virtue and happiness of the nations of 
mankind. 

The philosopher is here at fault. Mere natural re- 
ligion presents its truths in a shape so vast and so vague 
as to have little influence on the multitudinous masses of 
human creatures. Mankind everywhere require for their 
comfort, their support, and their virtue, a creed and a 
worship more definite. The philosopher has nothing 
wherewith to satisfy the want. 

What is he to teach even his own children ? Are they 
to be left in this dangerous world without the restraining, 
purifying, elevating influences of positive religion ? Are 
their minds to be perplexed by religious controversy ? 

What is he to do with his servants ? Some perhaps 
young and inexperienced, ignorant, exposed to a thousand 
temptations ; some, it may be, grown grey in his service. 
Is it not his duty to treat them as humble friends, to 
provide for them (as far as he can) that light and security 
which religion affords ? And what religion ? Are 
these poor ignorant people to perplex their minds 
with the profoundest and most mysterious of problems ? 



€H~. XV. 



NATURAL RELIGION. 



135 



The philosopher may make a few good men in a 
century, but he is powerless to move the masses. 

Not so the Ministers of Eeligion, among whom are 
sometimes to be found the most highly educated of man- 
kind, as well as the most efficacious teachers of religious 
faith and religious duty. 

They can and do move the masses. 

Look at the great existing forms of the Christian 
Church Universal, at this moment. 

Take first the Eastern or Greek Church, comprehend- 
ing portions of the east of Europe, and the whole of the 
vast Kussian Empire in Europe and Asia. 

Next view the Latin Church, embracing all the 
south of Europe, dominant in Ireland, powerful even in 
England, ruling in South America, and flourishing in the 
United States. 

Then the Lutheran Church, comprehending the largest 
part of the Great G-erman Empire, and the north of 
Europe. 

The Anglican Church in England and the north of 
Ireland. 

The Presbyterian Churches of Scotland, whether with 
or without patronage by the State. 

Then the multitudes who compose the various sects of 
Dissenters in England, Ireland, and the United States — 
Presbyterians, Unitarians, Independents, the Friends, the 
Baptists, Calvinistic Methodists, Wesleyan Methodists — 
all of them without any patronage from the State, and 
most of them without any endowments. 

The Christian Eeligion, again, in its various forms 
exists, flourishes, and spreads in the vast Colonial Empire 
of Great Britain, in Canada, in Australia, in Africa, and 



136 



INEFFICACY OF 



CH. XV. 



even in India, where it has to confront the ancient re- 
ligions of Bramah, or Buddha, and the intolerance of 
Mahometanism. 

What has the mere philosopher to say to all this ? 
If he is candid he must admit that the more these 
various forms conflict, and the more their doctrines seem 
to him incredible in themselves and irreconcilable with 
each other, the more clearly throughout the world are 
the religious instincts and religious wants of mankind 
demonstrated. 

And what can he do to satisfy these instinctive wants, 
in the great events of even the private human existence of 
man or woman, such as birth, marriage, death ? 

But now, at the beginning of life, steps forth the 
Christian priest or Christian minister to prompt and to 
express the thanksgiving of the mother — to admit the new- 
born child into the visible Church, and to remind the 
parents of their duty to guide and lead it in the paths of 
Christian virtue, traced and guarded by religious autho- 
rity and religious sanctions. 

And again in the most important mutual contract 
which man and woman can make, and on which all their 
own mutual future happiness depends, as well as the 
welfare of their offspring ; the Christian minister in 
almost all cases, though in various forms, still intervenes to 
hallow the union by his solemn prayers and admonitions. 

And when death is at hand for what or for whom do 
most men and women call, including many and many an 
actual unbeliever who feels oppressed by the uncertain 
void ? They send for the minister of their Church, and 
desire its help, its intervention, and its consolations. 



CH. XV. 



MERE NATURAL RELIGION. 



137 



Nor let it be supposed that this is done only by the 
poor and ignorant; it is done also by the great, the wise, 
and the learned. 

The First Napoleon, a day or two before his death, 
sent for the Abbe Vignali, and this was the conversation. 

6 Do you know what a chambre arclente is ? ' 

'Yes, Sire.' 

6 Have you ever prepared one ? ' 
< No, Sire.' 

6 Well, you shall prepare mine.' 

He then entered into details, giving the priest long 
instruction?, and, turning to Dr. Antomarchi, said, c You 
are above these weaknesses. But I am neither philosopher 
nor physician. I believe in Grod. I am of the religion 
of my father. It is not everybody who can be an atheist 
if he would. I was born in the Catholic religion, and I am 
desirous of fulfilling the duties which that religion im- 
poses, and of receiving the succour which it administers.' 

The Abbe having had his instructions, retired. 

Dr. Antomarchi was left alone with Napoleon, who 
rallied Antomarchi on his supposed unbelief. 

6 Can you push it to this point ? Can you help be- 
lieving in Grod ? For, in fact, everything proclaims His 
existence, and, besides, the greatest minds have believed 
in Him.' 

6 But, Sire,' said Antomarchi, 6 1 never doubted.' 

' Ah ! ' said Napoleon smiling. 4 Doctor, you are a 
medical man. Medical men,' added he in an undertone, 
e only handle matter and will never believe anything.' 

Dr. Franklin was brought up in the strict Puritanism 
of New England ; but from early manhood became an 



138 



INEFFICACY OF 



CR. XV. 



unbeliever. Yet in his last sickness, and on the bed of 
death, he, though in full possession of his faculties,, 
repeatedly required Dr. Watts's Psalms and Hymns to be 
read to him. 

In both these cases, the intellect of these eminent men 
remained intact. But how is any man to know, whether 
at this crisis even a sound mind will be his privilege ? 
The religious instinct, and the religious want may re- 
main, and call aloud for succour, when reason has become 
powerless. 

Lastly, when relations near and clear, parents or chil- 
dren, follow the beloved remains or stand weeping over 
the open grave, and when mere human philosophy is 
tempted to sink in despair, then the clear voice of the 
Christian minister exclaims aloud, 4 1 am the resurrection 

AND THE LIFE, SAITH THE LORD.' 

But there is another eminent characteristic of the 
Christian faith. It is essentially a social religion. The 
second table of its law is exacting and peremptory, — the 
love of our neighbour ; and as a resulting duty to others 
as well as to ourselves, the Christian faith prescribes social 
and public worship. 

Accordingly, ever since the first appearance of 
Christianity the obligation and importance of public 
worship has been felt and universally recognized. 

Whether persecuted or dominant, Christianity has ever 
been and yet is a religion eminently social. It has 
covered this island, and indeed all Europe, with magnifi- 
cent yet solemn edifices, well adapted to the ancient 
Christian worship of assembled multitudes, and in which 
generation after generation have worshipped in the beauty 



CH. XV. 



MERE NATURAL RELIGION. 



139- 



of holiness, and have received the instruction and conso- 
lations of religion. 

Not that the religious fervour of the multitude is de- 
pendent on magnificent structures, or the solemn tones of 
the organ, or on the feeling that generation after genera- 
tion for centuries have on that spot knelt, and prayed, 
and sung. On the contrary, in Protestant countries, and 
wherever full religious liberty is enjoyed, the people 
assemble for their own peculiar form of worship, not only 
in the cathedrals, or the churches, but in their humble 
chapels or meeting-houses, and enjoy in a different man- 
ner, but in the same degree, the hopes and consolations, 
and, I may add, the pleasures of their common holy faith. 

Man is by nature a social creature. The social in- 
stinct and religious instinct are very nearly allied. Pub- 
lic worship is practised by all positive religions, is pre- 
scribed by the Christian religion as a duty, and has 
everywhere in Christian countries been found to be wel- 
come and efficacious in the highest degree. Accordingly, 
the advocates of mere natural religion, perceiving the great 
advantages of public worship, have on several occasions, in 
England and elsewhere, endeavoured to introduce it in 
what they deemed a more rational and natural form, but 
all such attempts have ended in failure. 

In France, soon after the first great revolution of 
1789, a body of excellent persons, no doubt sincere 
theists, and calling themselves Theophilanthropists, en- 
deavoured to practise and found a public worship on the 
basis of mere natural religion. They assembled together. 
Flowers and fruits as offerings, music and exhortations 
were employed, but all in vain. The attempt soon came 
to an end. 



140 



INEFFICACY OF 



CH. XV. 



The same attempts, and with the same result, have 
been made in England. 

In London, some thirty or forty years ago, a personage 
calling himself the Eev. Kobert Taylor, and a clergyman 
of the Church of England, endeavoured to establish what 
he called a rational form of public worship, entirely in- 
dependent of the Christian faith in any form or of Chris- 
tian sanctions. He read, on a Sunday morning, instead of 
the Lessons, passages translated from Cicero's Offices, and 
afterwards preached a sermon. What was most remark- 
able was the careless and irreverent attitudes and behaviour 
of the audience, and the attempt soon came to an end. 

Contrast this exhibition with the scene presented in 
the meeting-house of the Friends, not only in England, 
but in the United States. There one sees the total 
absence of all ceremony, of all adventitious help from 
music or architecture. Much of the time is spent in 
profound silence ; but there is seen general devotion and 
unaffected reverence. It is contagious ; it affects young 
and old. A heartfelt prayer, or a Christian admonition, 
now and then is uttered ; it is heard with reverence and 
attention. 

What is the practical effect of Christian worship, Chris- 
tian teaching, and discipline in every Christian country, 
by every Christian Church, by every Christian sect ? The 
practical effect is to make good, virtuous, hopeful, and 
happy men and women, obedient and teachable children, 
not by ones and twos, not here and there, but by multi- 
tudes and everywhere, throughout all those Christian lands. 

Vice, no doubt, is inexpugnable, but still it is miti- 
gated ; for despair, blank and black, is substituted faith 
and hope. 



CH. XV. 



MERE NATURAL RELIGION. 



141 



What has a narrow sectarian, whether in Churches or 
in sects, to say to this ? Must he not admit that the 
Divine part of his religion is what Christian men agree 
in, not what they differ in ? 

It has been truly observed that the Christian religion, 
notwithstanding all the virtues which it prescribes, all its 
self-denials and devotional duties, is pre-eminently a prac- 
ticable religion, everywhere and at all times. 



142 



CHAPTER XVI. 

PHILOSOPHICAL SCEPTICISM. 

By the word c Scepticism' we do not here mean the scepti- 
cism of Berkeley or Hume or other sceptical philosophers, 
who have suggested that all we really know is our own sen- 
sations, and that, for aught any man can tell, there may 
in fact be no external world at all ; a doctrine which, if 
it be difficult to answer, it is at least impossible to prove, 
which, however, in the meantime contradicts our nature. 

But we refer to that milder and more rational scep- 
ticism which is content to rest in indolent and somewhat 
contemptuous doubt on subjects which, though not within 
the sphere of human sensation, of human experience, or 
of actual demonstration, are nevertheless of the utmost 
importance to the happiness and virtue of individuals and 
of whole nations. 

The modern sceptic steps forward with the appear- 
ance of tranquil wisdom and humility. c I,' says he, 
'know nothing about a future life, nor about Divine 
Providence, nor about Divine Justice. Your doctrines 
may be true for anything I know,' implying (though he 
may be too well bred to express it) c they may be false for 
anything you know, or anybody else knows.' 

But the question here is not a mere theoretical question ; 
it is a practical and urgent one. It is this — On which 



ch. xyi. PHILOSOPHICAL SCEPTICISM. 143 



theory is a wise man to act ? On which theory is he to 
live and die ? On which theory is he to enjoy peace of 
mind even in such a state of uncertainty as is described ? 

If he act on the religious theory, even though it 
should be altogether erroneous, though there should be 
no future life, no hereafter, yet one thing is still certain ; 
that he can never be undeceived or disappointed. In the 
meantime, throughout his whole existence, if a good man, 
he will have enjoyed the cordial, the comfort, and the 
safeguard of hope and trust, and of tranquillity of mind. 

But if a man act on the contrary, or even on the scep- 
tical hypothesis, he loses comfort, restraint, and support 
in this life. He is always fatigued by inquiry and doubt- 
ing, and may in another life find out, that he has been 
miserably mistaken. 

Moreover, the sceptic or the man of mere speculation, 
without consideration of consequences to himself or others, 
will, on the subject whereon at all times he ought to look 
for repose, depend very much on his temperament, his 
state of health, and the ever-shifting scenes and vicissi- 
tudes of human life. 

He may say how much better it would be if some- 
thing more could be known. But he himself is the very 
man who endeavours to make it appear that nothing can 
be known. 

Moreover, his use of the word 4 known ' is not free from 
ambiguity. If he means demonstrated as a mathematical 
certainty, then his proposition is very true ; but if by the 
word known he means having a high degree of pro- 
bability, then, to say the very least, it may not be true that 
nothing can be known. 

Yet further, the sceptic, in asserting that nothing can 
be known, dogmatizes and forsakes his own principles. 



144 PHILOSOPHICAL SCEPTICISM. cn. xvi. 

To be consistent, he ought only to maintain that it is 
uncertain, whether anything can be known or not. 

Much depends on age. The young and the old are in 
very different circumstances. The young and inexperi- 
enced, knowing very little of what human life really is, 
are full of hope in this life ; all their interests, almost all 
their relations and friends, are yet here. The old look 
back for beloved children or reverend faces they will never 
see here again. Their interest in the past is natural and 
deeply affecting. But hope comes to their aid, and true 
wisdom will encourage it. 

Go into a churchyard in any Christian country, and see 
the prevalence of hope. 



145 



CHAPTER XVII. 

MAHOMETANISM. 1 

The religion of Mahomet is at this day professed and 
fervently believed by about 150,000,000 of the human 
race now living in Europe, Asia, and Africa. It admits 
the Divine origin of Christianity, and the genuineness of the 
Christian Scriptures ; but claims to supersede them by a 
further revelation of Divine truth, vouchsafed to Mahomet, 
and contained in the Koran. 2 

Its leading doctrines are the Unity of Grocl ; His super- 
intending providence ; the duty and efficacy of prayer ; 
Divine worship, public as well as private ; personal cleanli- 
ness, a future life, and the immortality of man. 

1 It is respectfully submitted to those, who are far better ac- 
quainted than the writer, with the history, doctrines, and peculiarities 
of Islam, that the prophet has long ago acquired an English, or rather 
a European name ; that, however his name, or the name of his reli- 
gion, may have been spelt or pronounced in his own country, his Eng- 
lish and French, or rather his European name, is, and has been for 
centuries, Mahomet, and not Mohammed ; and the name of his religion 
Mahometanism, and not Mohammedanism. If these innovations are 
to prevail, we ought no longer to say Caesar, or Cicero, but to make 
the letter c hard in both cases, because the Romans so pronounced. 

Besides all which, the words Mahomet and Mahometanism are in 
English more easily pronounced, than Mohammed and Moham- 
medanism. 

2 The reader who is desirous of further information on this sub- 
ject is referred to the recent work of Sprenger (Berlin, 18G7), and the 
Lectures of Mr. Bosworth Smith, 1874. 

L 



146 



MAHOMET ANISM. 



CH. XVII. 



But, on the other hand, Mahometanism is intolerant 
and persecuting ; it spreads its doctrines by the sword ; it 
sanctions polygamy, and so destroys the sweet charities of 
Christian life, and the virtuous influences of women, to- 
gether with the purity and sanctity of the domestic circle. 
In this respect it is behind even the classical religions of 
antiquity. 

Where in a Mahometan country can you find a female 
character like the mother of the Gracchi in ancient Pagan 
Eome ? 

The heaven which Mahometanism sets before its ad- 
herents is a heaven of ease and the grossest sensuality. 

Not only slavery, but what is a different thing and 
much worse, the slave trade, is admitted and practised. 
Science and literature are almost unknown. 

Mahometanism is not an original religion. What is 
good in it is borrowed from the Old Testament, from the 
New Testament, and from the Arabian philosophers. 

It was spread originally by the sword, and so effected 
a reformation among some Pagan nations, inculcating with 
its leading article the Unity of Grod, scrupulous cleanliness, 
hospitality, temperance, and charity to the poor. 

The spread of Islam by intolerance, and the sword is 
still esteemed a duty. 

It forbids the representation of all living creatures for 
fear of idolatry, and consequently proscribes in a great 
measure the fine arts. 



147 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

SOCRATES AND ST. PAUL. 

Socrates was bom about the year 470 before the Christian 
era, was prosecuted and was put to death by poison at 
Athens when he was about seventy years of age, for dissent- 
ing from the polytheism of the Greeks. 

The accusation on which he was convicted was not that 
he was an unbeliever in any Divine Being, but that he 
taught something above the gross polytheism of his coun- 
try. We have the very words of the reason given for his 
sentence : Ovs /lieu rj rrroXis vofii^si, Osovs, ov voybltpv ' tcai 

Sia(f)dslpCOV TOV9 VSOV9' 1 

We have authentic information as to his parentage, 
his education, his person, his history, his habits, and his 
doctrines in the writings of his contemporaries, and of his 
literary executors, as they have been called, Plato and 
Xenophon. 

Much has been said and written about the daemon 
of Socrates. It seems to have included what we now call 
conscience — an inward intimation (from a supposed Divine 
source) of right and wrong, of what a man ought, and 
what he ought not to think or do. 2 

1 I.e. perverting the young. 

2 The reader who is desirous of further information as to the 
daemon of Socrates, is referred to an able and learned work, enti- 
tled, Socrates and the Socratic School, by Zeller, translated by 
Reiehell, and published by Messrs. Longmans j and also to a lecture 

i, 2 



148 



SOCRATES AND ST. PAUL. 



CH. XYIII. 



Socrates lived in an enlightened age, in the city, of all 
others, most famed for philosophy, learning, and taste. 1 
His father was a sculptor. Socrates had seen the world, 
and was above seventy years of age ; he had been a soldier, 
and had served in three campaigns. He had, moreover, 
been a student of the fine arts and a sculptor in that city, 
where sculpture in its Pentelic marble had produced 
masterpieces never equalled before or since, and which 
are still exhibited in the national museums of modern 
Europe for the admiration of mankind. 2 He understood 
and felt the beauty both of man's outward form, and of 
man's inward nature. 

Socrates taught in a humble and unassuming manner, 
usually by pertinent questions, which brought forth the 
truth from the mind and tongue of the learner himself. 
Plato, we are told, called this mode of Socratic teaching 
intellectual midwifery. 

Socrates taught the existence of Deity, the reality of 
Divine suggestions to the human mind, the obligation of 
Divine worship, though it might be more patrio, the im- 
mutable distinction between right and wrong, indepen- 
dently of consequences. 

His sentiments, and his last words in the very article 
of death, after he had swallowed the fatal draught, we 
find in Plato. 

Just 400 years after the death of Socrates another yet 

delivered by his Eminence Cardinal Manning before a scientific 
audience, and afterwards published. But the subject Las also been 
the theme of numerous German writers. 

1 Erj; -ytyorwg 7r/\aw e(3SofirjKOVTa. — Plato. 

2 Some at least among those on which we now look were 
familiar to Socrates, and for many years after his death a piece of 
sculpture by his own hands was in existence. 



CH. XVIII. 



SOCRATES AND ST. PAUL. 



149 



more celebrated religious teacher arrived at Athens, who 
found the city still the chosen abode of all the fine arts, 
still anxiously restless and inquisitive on philosophical 
and religious subjects. 

The idolatry of the intellectual and splendid town, we 
are told, shocked St. Paul. He discussed religious sub- 
jects not only with his own countrymen the Jews, but with 
the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, who looked upon 
him, some with contempt, some with curiosity, and 
brought him to the eminence, from which he could be con- 
veniently and publicly heard. 

He begins his discourse to his audience by approving 
of their interest in religious questions and usages. 1 He 
seizes upon an inscription that he had seen on a monument 
dedicating it 6 to the unknown GrOD.' c Whom, therefore,' 
says he, 'ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you.' 
He proclaims Him as the Creator of the universe, every- 
where present ; he insists on the natural equality of 
man, a future life, and judgment to come. 

But St. Paul does not rest in mere natural religion, he 
goes on to proclaim the peculiar articles of his own faith. 

In the philosophy of Socrates we have an example 
of what we have already discussed, the inemcacy, with the 
multitude of, mere natural religion. The religious doc- 
trines of Socrates have ever been, and still are, known 
and reverenced but by a few learned men. The religious 
doctrines of St. Paul at this day, after the lapse of eighteen 
centuries, not only cover modern and enlightened Europe, 
but vast continents and countries then unknown. His 

1 The word SuaidaiixovtaTspovg as here used is not considered by 
the learned to imply censure, but rather commendation, and indeed 
the context seems to show that this is the right view of it. 



150 



SOCRATES AND ST. PAUL. 



CH. XVIII. 



doctrines constitute, at least in profession, the religion of 
civilized man throughout the world, and have been the 
faith of many among the ablest of mankind ; while they 
have also made in all ranks of society good men and 
women, dutiful and affectionate children, everywhere and 
by millions. 



151 



CHAPTEE XIX. 

RESIGNATION, CHEERFULNESS, AND HOPE ; OR 
DESPONDENCY, DESPAIR, AND FEAR. 

Eeyerential submission to the will of Heaven is the first 
of Christian duties. ' Hallowed be Thy name ; Thy will 
be done.' 

Health, social position, wealth, and reputation, are of 
little value if darkened by a gloomy and desponding* 
temper of mind ; they are but means to an end, and that 
end is happiness ; but cheerful hope is the end itself, it 
is already happiness. Cheerfulness, moreover, eminently 
conduces to health both of body and mind ; it is one of 
the three great physicians of nature. 

II est trois medecins qui ne se trompent pas, 
La gaite, le doux exercice, et le modeste repas. 

Every hour redeemed from despondency and melancholy, 
and bathed in the sunshine of cheerfulness, is an hour 
of true life gained. Life is but the raw material of 
happiness ; it is cheerfulness that works ' it up into en- 
joyment. Cheerfulness is to be cultivated at all times 
and in all places. The secret of the wise man is always 
and everywhere to find sources of happiness. Cheerful- 
ness is not to be postponed for future enjoyment, but to 
be enjoyed now. Dispositions of the mind, like postures 
of the body, become habitual. The man who struggles and 
shuts out despondency and despair and cultivates cheer- 
fulness is habitually and involuntarily cheerful ; the man 



152 



HOPE OR DESPONDENCY. 



CH. XIX. 



who yields to despondency and gloomy apprehensions 
gradually sinks into habitual and confirmed melancholy. 

There are some subjects of gloomy apprehension, that 
are not to be dwelt upon and entertained : one is the 
general condition of human nature, subject to decay and 
death, and obnoxious to accident. 

The condition of man on earth is the ordinance of 
Heaven. It is ours to submit with humble and cheerful 
resignation to a wisdom inscrutable, a power irresistible, 
and a benevolence undeniable. It is our wisdom and our 
duty to leave the care of the world to the Maker of the 
world, and to mind the individual duty and happiness of 
ourselves, and of those about us. We can really benefit 
our immediate connections, and convert the misery of 
general apprehension and fear, into the luxury of doing 
good in particular cases. But doing good to the world at 
large, is in most cases the dream of vanity and presumption. 

Other forbidden themes of meditation are the diseases, 
dangers, and evil accidents that may befall ourselves or 
those who are dear to us. By allowing the imagination to 
dwell upon them, we multiply indefinitely the evils of life. 
We can at worst suffer but some or a few of them, and we 
voluntarily by anticipation suffer them all. 

A third forbidden theme of anxiety is the condition of 
the State or public weal. All we can do is to record our 
honest testimony on the right side, if we can find it out. 
Public measures are never the best that could be taken. 
The state and destiny of nations is in the hand of Grod. 
The condition of our country has, at almost any assignable 
period of its history, as well as at this moment, afforded 
ground for reasonable apprehension, yet in most instances 
fears were groundless, and good came out of evil. More- 
over, in the destiny of nations causes and counteractives 



CU. XIX. 



HOPE OR DESPONDENCY. 



153 



are both so vast and inappreciable by our limited facul- 
ties, that the anxiety of the wisest man is often vain and 
profitless solicitude. 1 

Besides these negative precepts for cheerfulness, there 
are positive ones. 

One is employment of body and mind, for we are a com- 
pound of both. And especially should the mind be exercised 
on facts and subjects of certain knowledge, such as history, 
law, or physical science, rather than in speculations on 
human destiny, human origin, or human nature, that will 
only weary, perplex, and end in uncertainty. 

Acquiescence in genuine and simple religious faith 
and sentiment, revealed by human nature, taught in some 
degrees by all religions, but especially and effectually by 
the Christian religion ; equally necessary to the virtue 
and happiness of the wise man and the foolish. Paley 
remarks, c I take upon myself to say that religious people 
are generally cheerful people.' 

Attendance on the public religious worship of a 
Christian country. The religious sentiment, though parcel 
of human nature, is vague and indefinite. The ordinary 
occurrences of life tend to weaken and efface it. Age, 
moreover, too often chills the devotional fervour. But it 
is revised and roused and kept alive by the solemn public 
services of the temple. Besides all this there is the duty 
and force of example. 

Sometimes that simple religion which underlies all 
positive systems appears to the reflecting mind to be, so 
far as it goes, intuitive truth ; a gleam of sunshine seems 

1 ' Quid dementius quam angi futuris, nec se tormento reservare, 
sed accessere sibi miserias, et admovere quas optimum est diilerre si 
discutere non possis ? ' — Seneca. 



154 



HOPE OR DESPONDENCY. 



CH. XIX. 



to break through the clouds. It is certain, that religion 
under various forms approves itself to the universal feel- 
ings of mankind, is forced upon them by their helpless 
miseries, is the stay and support of their solemn duties, 
and commends itself to the reason of the overwhelming 
majority. It is plain, that disproved it never can be here 
or hereafter. A rational and feeling man, then, cannot 
stop short of religion, or rather cannot adopt as his 
settled conviction its negative ; neither can he adopt as 
truth all the poetical forms into which it has been 
elaborated. He is shut up and conducted to this alter- 
native — religion, with hope at least of its truth and no 
fear of its safety ; or atheism, with doubt of its truth and 
fear of its safety. He must either entertain a sublime, 
consoling, sustaining, elevating, ennobling faith — and 
therein both sympathize with the bulk of his fellow-men 
and follow his nature — or he must be in the most uncom- 
fortable of all mental conditions, a perpetual oscillation 
between the various degrees and forms of atheism, mixed 
with a suspicion and fear that something better may be 
true. His despondency will be incurable, will be incon- 
sistent with itself, and will incline hither and thither, 
this way or that, with the state of his health, the last 
book, the last companion, or the most recent incident of 
his life. 

But it may be objected that these observations show 
despondency to be miserable and unhappy, not to be 
groundless. Advantage or disadvantage, it may be added, 
have no more connection with truth or error, than colours 
have with sounds. News is not false because it is bad, 
or true because it is good. 

Undoubtedly. But despondency is neither truth nor 
error ; it is a melancholy posture of the mind wherein it 



CH. XIX. 



HOPE OR DESPONDENCY. 



155 



refuses to exert itself, and to draw any but melancholy 
conclusions, or to act on any theory. It is a legitimate 
argument against such a posture, that it is a distressing- 
one ; that a man had better form the best judgment he 
can, and act accordingly. On many subjects to suspend 
the judgment and await more information is wise ; but 
on this, where decision is urgent, it is foolish, weak, and 
hopeless. 

A wise man, then, cannot remain indifferent on these 
difficult subjects. He must choose between irreligion 
and religion. One or the other must be right, and 
he must say which. Eeason, comfort, safety, and tran- 
quillity unite to sway him to religion. 

The true benefit of established forms to a wise man is 
to afford the use, not only for himself, but for his chil- 
dren, and his dependents of a practical and tried system. 
Thus the union of intellectual vigour and decision, sound 
judgment and practical experience, may lead to a prac- 
tical faith, cheerful and unwavering. 



156 



CHAPTEK XX. 

PHILOSOPHY AND EELIGION. 

Philosophy and pure religion are not antagonistic, but 
naturally minister to each other mutual support. 

The Divine Existence, His power, wisdom, and bene- 
volence, are doctrines of all sound philosophy, demonstrable 
and clear beyond any reasonable doubt. They are also 
among the doctrines of all pure religion. 

Eeligion affirms a future life. Philosophy does not 
deny it. Eeligion believes ; philosophy, at least, hopes, 
and practically enjoins a man to regulate his life on the 
affirmative hypothesis. 

Eeligion teaches the duty and efficacy of Divine 
Worship. Philosophy does not deny either. Philosophy 
on some points may have its doubts ; but whatever they 
may amount to, true practical Philosophy, nevertheless, acts 
on the affirmative, and in Christian countries generally 
worships with the multitude, considering the substance 
to be of the last importance, but the form to be compara- 
tively immaterial. 

Philosophy is adapted to but a small fraction of man- 
kind. What does a poor washerwoman, or the poor 
children that run half naked about the streets, know of 
philosophy ? What can they ever know ? Eeligion, on 
the other hand, is for the multitude, and often makes 



CH. XX. 



PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION. 



157 



them, not only better, but practically wiser and happier 
than their superiors in education and rank. 

Eeligion and philosophy are naturally allies, and reci- 
procate mutual support and admonition. 

There is but little consolation in philosophy unaided 
by religion, and no effectual restraint on fanaticism or 
even persecution for religion, except by philosophy. 

There is nothing so sublime in human nature as accu- 
rate learning and profound philosophy, combined in the 
same man with deep Christian humility. 

History, biography, and happily actual observation, 
present touching and illustrious examples. 



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